Romans 8:32

" He who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all - how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things."

I've read or heard this verse more than 100 times, and I've always read it as a promise of blessing, of an abundance of many good things - physical or material things.  How is it that we so easily take in the spiritual with such a focus on the physical.  How quickly we seek to gratify the flesh.  I translated this to mean that He will graciously/freely give me all good, happy, easy things, but is this anyone's life experience?  If He is giving us ALL THINGS and it is going to take His grace...and look like the same things He gave His Son " along with him" ... what does that look like.
   Well, as I examine His Son's life: born into scandal, multiple attempts on His life, wrongfully accused at every turn, poor, rejected, homeless, suffering, crucified... hmm.  Do I receive these " all things" as grace gifts?  And it doesn't take long looks or much pondering to see how His prize/favored friends are treated and to consider the "all things" they are given.  Without a full reliance on His grace and goodness, this verse once understood with such joy and eagerness could cause a person to shrink back and decline such favor and attention.
   Yet, His grace is there in the fire and the fight.  His goodness does bring it and carry us through it and these gifts are good because they bring us God who is the ultimate GOOD.  And in the midst of what His Son suffered and may others before and after, He is Faithful.

Life and Death

A sign in Chicago reads: 515 traffic deaths this year...and it presses in.  The weight, the smell, the great heaviness, sadness and pervasiveness of death seems suddenly so thick and heavy.  It's there in words like cancer, in stories of hard life and failed efforts, in beginning of life and end of life challenges and decisions.  It seems to press in on every side to smother, to suppress hope, to destroy one's will for anything: for excellence, vitality, for something better and higher.  And then, almost as suddenly but more softly and slowly, I can almost hear the nursery rhyme playing over the hospital's intercom system telling all who will listen that new life has arrived in a tiny package.  And I remember Spring and the leaves unfurling green after a long, hard winter.  I can see sprigs of life bursting through bedrock and concrete..and I know who wins in the end!  I know that death is swallowed up in life and pain will be eclipsed by victory.  And hope springs eternal because THE ETERNAL is Life and in Him is no darkness at all.  Because He is and ever will be the Eternal, this passing shadow or fleeting pain, this transient sorrow will be swallowed whole and Life will be what remains.  Paradoxical? Yes.  Still painful?  Yes, but nonetheless true.  Hope! Life! Victory! Triumph! Light and Glory...these have the last word.  And that Word has been manifested to us and is in us.
  This pulsates through me; it thrills me; it gives me the energy to take another step, to walk in joy, to revel in the little every day things, to say blessed be the Name of the Lord.  It is to be praised from the rising of the sun to its going down.