Objectives

In your suffering, Lord - in thorns, the nails, the blows to your broken body...In the tearing separation from the Father and the Spirit on that dark day.  Even before then, in the laying aside your glory, in the wilderness with no food, in the loneliness, the blisters from walking, the sunburns, the desertion of friends and family, living homeless - in all of your discomfort, pain and sacrifice...did you close your heart towards us as the reason for your suffering? Not once.  Not once did you lay blame on us for your death and see us as objects of scorn or bitterness.  "Father, forgive them..."  Yet, You...You! freely became the object of the Father's wrath of your own choosing and you didn't for a millisecond hold it against us.  Rather you saw the sin, the darkness and the brokenness.  And you viewed us (then and now) as the objects of your compelling love, compassion and even your inheritance and glory!!  And how then do I live?  I have spent a lifetime blaming others for my discomfort...instead of viewing them as objects of love, mercy and compassion.  How often I have closed my heart towards another.  Just emotionally shut down on them, cold as stone.  Sorry, no mercy for you here today.  My soul-eyes see them as the reason for my discomfort, pain, or frustration and they become objects of bitterness, scorn or indifference.  But they are really not to blame, are they?  Have I any right to mark them as objects of anything less than open-hearted-grace-receivers?  As I have been marked by Christ the King?  Oh! To be free to view all men and my God as the objects - the recipients - of the laying down of my life and of acts of compassion and mercy and nothing else. What freedom and sweet release in life when I don this perspective.  Yet often I feel closed off.  I am "done" and "undone" all at the same time.  I don't want to continue to press into that soul.  I don't want a steadfast love that remains always open towards another in forgiveness, grace and compassion.  I'd rather close the gate to my own little kingdom and rule things neatly and comfortably from there, dictating who may or may not enter.  And so I pray...Yahweh, breathe on me and open my soul.  You, the Great Opener of all things Closed.  You opened the heavens and it rained. You opened the sea and made a way.  You opened the rock and water poured forth.  You opened the womb and became incarnate. You opened the eyes of the blind. You opened the grave and swallowed death.  My God...You can open me!

We are the objects of your love, Lord.  You have set your mercy and compassion on us.  Bless God.  All joy is mine!

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." Eph 2:4-5