Oh Ants

These are a few of my favorite things . . .

adult gummy vitamins
messages left on my voice mail
red finger nail polish
sunny days in pdx
powerful Good Friday services
balloons


But these pale in comparison to the things on my top favorite things list. :)

There's this song.

"Light of the world, You stepped down into darkness."
And I'm mesmerized by LIGHT.

Follow me . . . this may seem like I'm trailing, but there's purpose.

Yesterday, I was sitting on a picnic bench, and I was thinking about ants and how crazy it would be if I became an ant and came into their world and tried to save the little creatures from a destruction they couldn't see. No, wait, . . . this doesn't quite work. Imagine if I was a very intelligent biologist who studied ants. I knew everything about them in fact. Knew how they looked, how they functioned, what they liked best to eat, where they would hide when the storm came. Everything. And as the very intelligent biologist that I am, I could see that these ants were diseased, and they could only be saved by a pure ant's blood. So, being a kind intelligent biologist, I decided I'd turn myself into an ant, live their life, and let them hurt me so they could take my blood.

Please tell me you're shaking your head right now, 'cause friend, this is just plain ridiculous!!! NO WAY would I sign up to be an ant. Sorry, but I'm quite happy with my human status. Plus, that would be extremely dorky.



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Yeah. Doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't make sense to me at all why an All Powerful God would put on our skin. Why He would come, dressed in common humanity (He didn't even make Himself the most physically attractive person ever --- He could have, but Isaiah says He didn't). Doesn't make sense why He would be patient with our ignorance in not understanding the power of Him being the Maker of our eyelashes and heart valves and rib cages. That He was the One in complete control through it all.

Doesn't make sense why He would care to save us. Ants. Smears and smudges on His once-perfect-world's canvas. We are darkness. We are hidden in it and immersed in it, and He stepped into our world to reach our hearts, to be our God.

In one of my classes, one student played a song sung in Korean that portrayed Jesus' coming from a different point of view, and through that, the idea stuck out to me that we must remember that God has actually, physically been here. There are physical dates attached to when He stepped foot here. There is a legitimate month and day and year when the nails split through the flesh of His hands and sent the blood spilling. There is an exact time when He breathed His last. There is a definitive moment when He left the tomb. It's legitimate history. It's our story. It's redemption and light and beauty!! It is HOPE. And every year, I wish I could understand it so much more, and every year, while I still am so far from realizing what Jesus truly did, I maybe get it just a very tiny bit more around this Easter time of year. And I'm excited. Excited to celebrate LIGHT coming into the World. Light rising from death.

Jesus winning against death, springing into our hearts as Light . . . these are on my top favorite things list. Light. Jesus. He's my favorite.

I hope you have a beautiful Resurrection Day, that You can celebrate the time when the One True, Real God literally came here. For us . . . ants compared to His greatness. Yet we were worth it to Him.

And He hasn't left us on our own. He has left us with His Spirit, with His light. And these are other things to add to my top favorite thing list . . .