where waves grow sweet

It’s been a busy month so far and I haven’t had a chance to write a post, but I wrote this piece for my Bible study as we were going through Romans 5 and thought I would share it. Blessings, friends!

Audio version:

I always knew there was something deeply wrong with me. It wasn’t just a matter of bad choices or behavior but of something undeniably and irreparably broken at the very center of my being. It was a wrong that I could never make right. Of this I was certain. I wasn’t mistaken.

This sinful nature that I couldn’t escape, this suffocating weight of hopeless plight, was secured for me by Adam in the garden when pure and unbroken relationship was traded for the empty promise of a lying scoundrel for something better than Love. It is here that a stand was made, feet planted in an earth now condemned to death, to trust in the created that is but a vapor rather than the Creator who knows no end. 

All who followed were born into sin, mankind sprouting from the root of Adam, every sin-imprinted cell tracing us back to this man who sealed our fate. There is nothing we can do to change it. No amount of good, no sacrifice, no way of getting everything just right. Death is our inheritance. We may blame Adam for his wrong that cursed humanity and tainted our future, as if we too hadn’t chosen in one moment or a million to trust in the empty promise of something better than Love.

We may dress things up to feel noble and good. We may pat ourselves on the back for doing better than another, but what good is a strong stroke in an endless sea without a shore? One may flail in fear and immediately inhale the briny water while another masters the waves with power and grace, yet their fate is the same. Sin declared that we didn’t need God. That we didn’t want His help. That we ourselves are saviors, spurning the only One who could save us. We couldn’t alway see how very helpless we were. But God did.

And it was there, where we flailed in our brokenness, damaged and unworthy, shame weighing us down like rocks on our ankles, or where we proudly paraded our strength and beauty as if we had done no wrong and could, by our own will or goodness, save ourselves that God, whose Love for us had never – not even for a moment – faltered, set His plan in motion to restore what we couldn’t and save us.

There was only ever one man who never traded His inheritance of Love for something less, something of His own design; the only One worthy of being saved from the condemnation of this world. It was this man, Jesus, the son of the living God, who was given as a willing and spotless sacrifice. There on the cross, where we spit on Him and mocked Him in the blindness of our need, the burning fire of the sin of all mankind pierced His hands and feet, its deserved condemnation pressing with suffocating force on His lungs. His untainted blood poured out, forgiveness seeping into the soil of the earth that held the root of our wrongs, as this Man, this second Adam, took a stand in obedience and trust, planting His feet in the Kingdom of God where a new root took hold. 

For a moment in time, when all looked lost and hope was nowhere to be found, death was being conquered once and for all. Not only death, but the shadows of shame, the fear of separation, the despair of our state. The echoes of the garden that rang in Adam’s ears, that ring in all of our ears, of unshakeable peace and undeniable beauty, of unfailing hope and unbroken relationship, of life – true life, resounded throughout the earth as Jesus rose from the grave, proving Himself to be who He said He was and His promises to be true. 

His mighty hand reached down into the sea of our shame and pride, where we strove without end to save ourselves, saying, “Take my hand and I will give you life! Not because you deserve it or because you have – or ever will – get things right, but because my sacrifice has restored the pure and unbroken relationship that was corrupted through Adam’s disobedience. Through me, peace is yours. Victory over sin and over the shadow of death is yours. It is a gift; a free gift. Take my hand and I will give you rest for your souls.

“Cease your striving and your struggle against a tide that will not abate and let Me graft you into this new root, an incorruptible root, born of undying hope and Love’s promise fulfilled. The depraved nature you could never elude will be replaced with Mine. Now you will be unable to escape righteousness. It will come from your very center and pervade who you are, every cell of your being declaring that you are no longer of Adam’s lineage, but Mine. No longer will you fear the waves that come in sets and crash overhead, threatening to destroy you, because they will only press you deeper into Me, causing overcoming hope to rise higher yet and my glory to be witnessed by all. So plant your feet in Me and receive the abundance of God, whose grace pours out freely through me, as you stand cleansed and whole in the soil of the Kingdom, for now and through all of eternity.”