The Super Blue Crayon

I was listening to the radio and a speaker said something about Jesus dying to bear the punishment of our sins. So I asked myself if it was true that God has this scale of justice that must be balanced. I thought for a bit and came to the decision that, yes, Jesus died and rose again to right a sort of balance. Here's what I wrote in my journal:

"See, when God gave us free will, the greatest gift ever--the gift of trusting us to keep the world perfect--then we were forced to choose. If a decision is made then out of all the possible choices there must be at least one right option and at least one wrong option. I call the right option(s) obedience and the wrong option(s) disobedience, or sin. There are probably very few choices that are so simple as to only have these two options, but every moment does have at least one option in each of these categories. I thought of it this way: if God offers us a box of crayons and asks us to pick the blue one and not the red one then we can still pick any of the, let's say, 24 crayons, but every time blue and red will be an option. There may even be multiple shades of blue and red, but blue and red will both be there.

"So, if each decision can have a bad choice, if at every moment we can sin, then there must be a penalty for picking that one. Same thing for the good, obedient choices except with rewards. Basically, choosing must matter or there wouldn't be a point to ever making a decision. God won't choose for us, so we have to pick a crayon. Only the blue and red and shades of each must have penalty/rewards, but all must have results.

"God loves his creation and would rather not punish us for picking red, but must have a payment for the red otherwise there would be no reason not to pick red and it would no longer be a wrong option. For a while the payment God chose was a sacrifice of goods--products of the self. But his beloved creation still kept choosing red and he still had to punish them. So he made it easier.

"Jesus came and died and rose again. It was God giving his own sacrifice--a product of his self--as a payment covering all the penalties. This does not mean that picking red is suddenly OK, not deserving a penalty. No, a penalty is still required, but there is an ever-present prepaid blue choice. The payment has been made for all of our red choices, but we still must make that one last choice of blue forgiveness to free ourselves from the penalty. At all times this super blue crayon is beside the box waiting for our hand to grab it. We can pick that option whenever we want as often as we want. And it is only possible because Jesus--God's self--came, lived, taught, died, and rose again defeating the penalty for sin: death."


Yep, that's what I wrote. Tell me what you think and where my thinking is flawed.

One month later

It's been a month.

I stumbled across this tonight and realized it was the perfect thing to toss up on my blog for all to read. I don't know how much it'll mean to anyone else, but it was powerful for me to reread tonight. When I wrote it I was attempting to figure out how I felt. I was aiming for just one concise word, but this is what spilled out:

"January 3, 2008

Alright, this is weird and it won’t make sense, but bear with me: I expect my expectations to be completely wrong. I expect that God will totally destroy my plans and hopes and dreams. And in that way I’ll find that God really is in control. So I won’t stop making plans and dreaming. I won’t stop hoping or making expectations, but I will hand my semester and my life over to God to totally break. Break is the right word. I seek brokenness, uncomfortableness, stress, fear. I desire to be shattered into a million pieces by the thoughts I have forced upon me by all I see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. And when I fall, I fall on God. I fall into the arms of Jesus. I find out how holy God is. I find my place in this world. I lose all of myself. My eyes will be lifted to heaven. Only God and I will know. My prayers will fly! I’ll see all that God does. I’ll make promises. My good days will span months! I’ll follow what I love. I’ll be silent. I’ll cry out to God. I’ll know another world. I’ll know God loves me and remember all that I have to be thankful for. I’ll finally know how much God wants to know me. I’ll never stop singing and I’ll never cease to be amazed. I’ll be crucified with Christ. I’ll fall down, give my all and see that God was there the whole time. I’ll be consumed by holy fire. I’ll fully glimpse God’s mercy and glory as it’s shown to me. I’ll lose my life and find my love. Then I’ll come back. My life will span on. The time of my life won’t be over. And God will know me and I’ll know that he’s never gone. God is everlasting. No one word can sum up how I feel. That all is how I feel. "


Yeah. Thanks for reading.