Really, Lord, Why So Much?

“It is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling—and indeed healthy—to ask why you have been given so much.”

~Condoleezza Rice.

The title is a ridiculous one. Who really—within their spirit—asks this? Perhaps it’s true that there are a few that ask it sometimes. We would like to think the entire Christian populace did so. Indeed, how much better a place would the world be if we could only stop looking over the infernal fence?

Thanks for the Basics

What are the most basic things we take for granted? Sight, sound, the physical world, air to fill the lungs; for the fortunate, love...

Peel off a worthy list and quickly it runs to the thousands. The goodness of God astounds as quick as it overwhelms... and we’re so apt at opening the gift horse’s mouth.

It’s not our fault—it’s the sinful nature through and through.

Five seconds deprived of air—the commencement of suffocation or drowning—and we soon learn the comparative riches of plain breathing air that is so effusive at other times. Plain water is either life or death, depending on quantity and situation.

These are basic things with power and we don’t often enough respect that power—or where that power comes from.

Thanks for the Great Luxuries

Beyond the needs of our time are the things we’ve been given that we don’t even need; the items and auguries of wealth that vast parts of the world would only dream of laying captive.

It is a wondrous mystery just why we would even contemplate complaining because the ‘network is down’ or there’s no internet coverage in a region we find ourselves in.

We’ve become so reliant on modern conveniences that we expect them to work as we desire—when neither the desire nor the thing (in how it’s used) glorifies the Almighty.

How wonderful a God we have that we even have these luxurious technologies—ones that allow us instantaneous friendship rapport with those on the other side of the globe. Technology is just one salient example of the riches we take for granted.

The Role of Repentance

Sharp in its rejection of the world is the Christian’s best ally—that to repent before the Lord for known sin. The idea to cast ourselves on God for falling for such a weight of unthankful behaviour is to get us back on track—to acknowledge all things given us, and the Giver over all.

This is why we cannot be Christian without responses of repentance; our broken nature won’t allow us court with God other than to proclaim our reliance on Christ to get us there. We must have Jesus who makes us holy before God, so we can be cleansed of our unthankfulness.

And there we have something bigger than everything to be thankful for: the cross.

Really, Lord... when in our mire... to send and sacrifice Jesus... why so much?

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.