Search and Rescue

Ezekiel 34:11-12 [ESV]

11 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

Sometimes, I feel God probing into my soul, pushing His way into the dark places in my heart.

Not that I feel him force himself upon me - it's not that. I have never felt violated by God.

But like a good friend, or a good therapist, or a good father - like the good God that he is - where there is trouble, he goes to help. When I know there is trouble in me - I've just been rude or short with someone and I know it, or I have had some old sin that I thought was long behind me jump up and surprise me, or any of the broken things we fallen humans do - when I am honest about the sinful trouble within me, and I take the time to look at it, I am amazed by how often I find God there.

It's strange, because I would expect him to be far from there. I would expect him to shun my sinfulness, to find me as abhorrent as I find myself, to be unwilling to be soiled by the grime of my broken heart.

But that isn't how I experience him. When I find myself far from him, when I see myself so different from him, so much less than what I ought to be, that's when I find him close to me. He pursues us, comes after us.

When there is something that I don't want to deal with inside myself - anger or hate, lust, fear, failure, pride - I find Him wanting to go right there. When I try to ignore it, when I let a day or two go by after doing something stupid or bad or down right evil, it's amazing how often I find him bringing it up. I settle into prayer, and I want to spend time with him, and whatever the problem is in my heart comes whispery into my mind. As if he will spend time with me, but first we must deal with this.

Or perhaps I don't settle into prayer. Perhaps I know very well that I should pray, but I feel bad about something. Maybe Ash and I have a fight, and I know she was more right than me, or I am ashamed of how childish I was. Sometimes when I do stuff like that, I feel to guilty or stupid to pray. And in some quiet moment during the day, I feel him prompting me to get with him and talk to him. But when I feel bad enough about something that I'm not praying, I know that if I do pray, we are going to have to deal with this shame first. I know that if I go to him, the very thing I don't want to think about is the very thing we are going to spend time with. So I don't want to give in to his gentle pursuit.

It's as if I hear him outside of me, asking me to let him in so that he can deal with it. And I don't want him to, because I know I'll have to face what I really am - a sinner struggling to leave behind my sin. I don't want to face that reality. I want to already be whole and perfect and good. I don't want to deal with the dark in me. I don't even want to think about myself as a less than admirable, likable person. I'd prefer to just pretend that I am who I wish I was already.

But he can be relentless. Especially when times are quiet. He comes pushing and whispering at me, and there is weight on my heart, and I know that it is him, and that he wants me to look in and see what's really in there. He wants me to confront the hidden parts of myself, so that I can stop trying to hide them from him - he knows about them anyway.

He knows that I am lost without him. He is coming after me himself - pursuing me into my own heart, coming after me to the place where I have wandered. The thing is, when I really wander from him, it isn't to some far off place outside of me, but to some far off place within myself. When the clouds and thick darkness cause me to loose sight of him, it is into my own sinfulness that I wander away. That's when I behave in ways that he never would and be a person that is so unlike him - without my sight on him, I become the me that I don't like.

And though I may not want to deal with Him when he comes with his gentle pressure, I know that he is coming to rescue me. I know that he seeks me so that he can save me from what I will become without his help. He's rescuing me from that dark place where I become an agent of darkness in this world and make the world a worse place.

And when he does this to me, and together God and I sift through my worthless heart - when we work where the pain is, I find him doing the most amazing healing. He really is a savior God, coming after me to rescue me from myself.

God's Song

Zephaniah 3:15-17 [ESV]

15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you;
he has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall never again fear evil.
16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
“Fear not, O Zion;
let not your hands grow weak.
17 The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

When Isaac was born, I held him in my arms, and I sang to him. Ashley took a picture of me, and I had no idea how sad I can look when I am so incredibly happy. Holding this little boy, my son, my beautiful, wonderful son - so fresh and new in the world, looking for all the world like my dead father, born with all his dark hair, resting quiet against my chest - I was filled with wonder and awe and gratefulness.

I sang a song that long ago my father sang to me. It's by Peter, Paul and Mary, called “Day is Done.” It's a song that basically says, I love you little boy, and everything is going to be all right.

As I sang to my son, I thought of my father. I thought of how much he loved me – Bobby R. Brown did everything in his life with incredible passion, whether it was something good or something very bad, and his love for me was no exception. My father loved me so much, and though I think he never really believed he could sing well, his song to me has always been a treasure in my heart.

I think my father sang that song to me because of his own fears and hopes. He hoped that if I would take his hand, I would be all right, but I think it was just as significant to him that he would be all right. That if he could love me, and know that I loved him, then his life would be better.

It breaks my heart to think that I wasn’t enough to heal his madness. I feel sometimes like I failed him. Like I wish that my love for him could have been enough to change him, and help him become sound and whole, and allow him to live. That I could have made his life better when the days were done – not just by easing his pain, but by diminishing his evil.

But how silly – I am not God.

I cannot even do this for myself! I wrestle with my own sick heart, my own broken parts, and I try to put pieces of myself back together, but as long as I am doing this myself, it all keeps falling apart. I don’t expect Isaac to help me with this, any more than I think Dad expected me to solve his depression or alcoholism. The fact that I wish I could have is a silly, boyish dream, kind of like when I used to wish I was Superman and could fly.

We simply cannot do this for each other. We can love each other, and we can hold each other, and cluster together against the darkness – but the world outside of us stays a mess. It doesn’t get better, and all is not well when the day is done. Worse, much worse, the world inside of us isn’t healed by our love for each other either! Instead, our love for each other is infected and distorted by the brokenness inside of us.

So I guess the song “Day is Done” is just a silly, hopeful dream. I can hold Isaac’s hand, but I can’t promise him that “all will be well” at the end of any day, can I? It breaks my heart into shards to think that someday, this beautiful little boy will take up my broken ways of sin. That he too will have to learn to fear evil, and that like his father, and like my father, he will hurt with the pain of being who he never wanted to become.

But what if God sings the song?

The picture in Zephaniah 3:17 is one of the most stunning ones in the Bible. I’m not sure which is more powerful, Jesus weeping, or God singing. Both are amazing pictures of love.

I think about God singing over me like I sang over my son, like my father sang over me. I know the joy in my heart as I sang to Isaac, and I wonder, is that how You feel about me God?

Just imagine the voice that first broke the darkness and spoke light into existence, the voice that continued speaking things into existence until He spoke your life into the world. Now imagine that voice singing to you, singing about you. Imagine strong arms holding you against a chest that contains a passionate heart, while the deep music that created the universe is sung in joy about you!

This is one who can do for us what I could never do for my father, and will probably not be able to do for my son either, what in truth I cannot even do for myself – He can quiet our troubled hearts. All the terror of the world around us just drops away when we are in his presence. All the sorrow and shame of the evil within us is carried away by His love.

He is in our midst! He is mighty to save us! He can help us to have strong hands that do good things, instead of weak hands that do those things that we do without Him in our lives.

And when day is done, it really will be well. When all of the dark, evil days are over, and they are swallowed up by the eternal day of God’s light and love, then all will be well. God can promise that all really will be well when these dark days are done.

I think that God is singing even now. That when I take the time to listen, my fear of darkness and of sin and death are vanquished by the beauty and wonder of His loving song. When I will take the time to try to hear his singing, I find that sin fades in me even now. Even now, before the end of the day, he is making me well.

So my dream for Isaac is not that I will be able to keep him from the brokenness of this dark world. Oh I dream that, and wish for that, but I don’t guess I really believe that. I wish I could keep my son from the sorrow and shame of sin, but I don’t think I have the power to do that.

No, my dream for Isaac is not that he will hear me sing to him and be healed by my love.

My dream for Isaac is that he will hear his true Father sing to him. And perhaps that he will long to sing with God His wonderful love song.

Walking with a Limp

Genesis 32:24-31 [ESV]

24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, [5] for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Assuming I don't keep changing the title of this blog, this is the scripture I had in mind when I titled it. I kind of think that I'll be using this blog for my own Spirit-Walk.

It's interesting to me that this story starts with: Jacob was left alone. I really don't like to be alone. I don't always want to be around people, but I run from the quiet of being alone. I turn on the TV and let the 24-hour news channel blather on and on, or I turn on the radio and let the political noise do its thing. I let the sound distract me and keep me from being alone.

But God comes to people who are alone. I believe that more than ever now that I've actually spent some time with Him. I think He disdains our distractions, and will not approach a distracted heart. He wants us for Himslef, and He wants to have us alone.

So why don't I do it more? Well, it's not always fun. Sometimes, being in God's presence is like listening to the best music that was every performed while eating the best food that I've ever tasted and smelling flowers from some far away exotic volcano. But other times, it's like going two rounds with Mike Tyson (I say two rounds, even though when God is hard, I rarely go more than one). (Of course, with Mike Tyson, I'm sure I could easily go two. Seconds.)

Because God will touch where it hurts! He makes me look at how ugly I am inside. He shows me all the vanity of my anger. An honest contact with Him shows me just how misplaced my pride really is - he is so much better than me, and he doesn't mind if I discover that. His purity burns my impurity of heart. When God is hard, I find myself splintered to pieces against him.

But even then, I want Him! When I am smart enough to be alone so that I can be with God, and I find Him being firm with me, my first thought is, "Oh NO!" But I don't want to leave right away! I want to grapple with Him and be so bold as to demand my wounded hip! I want my blessing, and when I am faithful enough, I grasp at Him and cry out, "Don't leave without blessing me!"

I want my life to be marked by my encounters with Him. I want to walk with a limp because I have wrestled with Him! I know He won't mark me from a distance - I will have to get close enough to let Him hurt me. But his wounds are kind - I know the hurts I receive from Him are therapeutic and that I cannot really live without them. I want God to so mark my life that my spiritual walk is a limping walk.

I think there are people who want to have a spiritual walk, but don't want the limp. They want to believe everything just right without having to get into the ring with God. They want his blessings, but they don't want him putting their joints out of socket. A spiritual walk like that has no limp. It also has no truth or reality. A sinner without a limp is a sinner. The Pharisees had no limp. Many Christians don't limp either.

I know this because I was like this for most of my life - pleanty of truth, not much prayer; lots of study, not much contemplation; knowing lots about God, but never believing He would actually care if I didn't try to get to know Him. Why would I limp? I knew the truth and was free. I thought that it was the lost sinner, not the sanctified righteous, who walked with limps.

No more. Now I know that sometimes God will hit more personally than the world does, because unlike the world, God expects me to change. God wants to alter me rather than letting the world (and my own foolish heart) kill me. And the alteration will hurt.

So I want my walk to be broken. I want my heart to be broken. I hope He hits me so hard that I never try to stand up on my own ever again. It would be okay with me if I have to lean on Him for every step I take for the rest of my life.

I say that, and as I think about it, it fills me with fear. The kind of fear I feel just before the doctor gives me a shot and I think - oh man, I hope this doesn't hurt too bad!

But better the cure than death. Better to limp.

John's Encouragement

Isaiah 35:3-8 [ESV]

3 Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who have an anxious heart,
“Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

8 And a highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over it.
It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

The text God led me to for encouragement last night when I was feeling so incredibly freaked out was verse four in this passage. This morning, I went back to it, kind of to remember that whatever I will face today will be something that God can help me through.

I read the verses around it, and something hit me pretty hard. I thought of John the Baptist, and his question for Jesus - are you the one I was told to expect, or is there someone else? - and I thought about my stress in light of John's. I guess what he was going through was probably a little harder, being in prison for being a good person.

And I thought of Jesus' reply to John and how much it sounds like this passage. Look at his reply and compare it to verses 5 and 6 in Isaiah 35. Here are Jesus words:

Matthew 11:4-5 [ESV]

4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

See the similarity? I wonder if Jesus did that on purpose. I wonder if Jesus meant for John to think of Isaiah 35 in light of his reply. Because John certainly knew the prophet Isaiah - he understood his whole life in light of Isaiah's prophecy! He believed he was the voice crying out in the wilderness to "prepare a way for the Lord and make his path straight!" Isn't it interesting that verse eight talks about a prepared way? Was Jesus telling John - "You did it, buddy! You fulfilled your life purpose. You may not understand everything I'm doing or how things are working out, but you can know this - you have done the job God put in front of you! Good job, John."

And in the midst of that hope, is the promise of salvation. Maybe not deliverance from prison ('cause that didn't happen), but that God would save him. And I suppose in eternity, John will certainly be among the saved. In a sense, knowing that your life has purpose and that you've lived it is part of salvation.

Anyway, I think about how Jesus took care of John, even though he didn't rescue him from his distressing situation. I think of that, and I think - he'll take care of me too. All I have to do is trust him.

An Anxious Heart Tonight

Isaiah 35:4 [English Standard Version]

4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

I have an anxious heart tonight!

I am supposed to defend my thesis sometime, but I have no idea when. My professor won't get back with me! I expected to hear from him tonight, but I have heard nothing! It maybe even this week.

On top of this, a group of college students is coming to work with our congregation, and I'm feeling a bit wigged out about that. Put those two together, and you've got a heart that can hardly think about God or listen to Him. I feel no peace in my heart right now - I feel a constant grating, as if paper were being torn slowly in my gut.

Be strong, God says. Isn't that a weird command to someone who feels overcome and weak? Be strong? I wish I could. But I'm so overwhelmed.

And a voice in my head says, "Are you going to obey or not? God told you to be strong. You are making a choice to dwell in and on your weakness. Trust God! He will work all this out."

And I think that voice is probably the Spirit of God Himself, and that I should trust it.

But right now, I don't want to be strong. I want to be angry and stressed - to shout and break things. I want to be weak! I want to dwell on how things might not work out instead of trusting that they will.

Be strong!

Do not be afraid, God says. A hard one to hear as well, when it seems to me that I have every reason to be afraid.

Again, that voice in my head - the choice is mine to obey. If I want to be strong and not to be afraid, then I must trust God. The only way I can be strong when I am at the end of my rope like this is to borrow strength from Him. The only way I can be at peace and not affraid is if I trust him to take care.

Which is what he promised - he will come and save.

So I think, okay, I'll try to be strong. I'll try.

And now, I wonder if the voice in my head is God or Yoda when I hear, "There is no try! Do!"

So I will obey. Even though my heart feels what it does, I will tell it to be quiet within me. I will get a grip on my emotions, and love my kids and do my work, and I will trust God to take care of me.

I love you, God, and I am counting on you to help me though all this stress and anxiety. I will trust you. Please help me.

Saturday Prep Work

Matthew 28:2 [English Standard Version]

2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

I don't do it every Saturday, but I should. Most often, Saturday is crazy for me - I'm putting last minute polish on what I'll be doing the next day, working through kinks and trying to make things as strong as possible. I usually don't have much still time on Saturday.

But today I'm taking a minute to consider the wonder of an angel sitting on a big, unnecessary rock.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to have an encounter with God among his people, and I want my heart to be ready for that. The thing that gets me ready for tomorrow isn't all the prep work I do on my class or my sermon, or laying out my clothes so we won't have to deal with that tomorrow.

What gets me ready is God's action so long ago when he emptied a grave.

It set's my heart toward worship if I close my eyes for a moment and remember the God who I have - what he's like, what kind of power he has and to what lengths he is willing to go. He's willing to send his son on a mission into a realm of darkness, to guide him through the world of death and pain but not to protect him from it.

He is a God willing to watch a horror I cannot contemplate without pain. When I imagine the death of my son, my heart locks and screams, NO! He would see the blood fly, listen to the screams and groans of Jesus. He would hear the soldiers laugh and see their terrible smiles, and watch them gamble for his son's only possession - his clothes. He would see the iron driven through flesh and into wood. He would listen to the crowd laugh and point and jeer. He would let this all go on. Because of the kind of God that he is, He will not stop it all.

He would do all of this because I needed it.

I have all this death in me - all these things I've been and done, all this distance I've put between me and my God, all the times I've been angry and let it fly without control, all the times I've been dishonest or manipulative or unkind, all of my lazy or unguarded moments - it was killing me! Sometimes, it feels like it still is.

But it isn't killing me anymore.

Because it killed Him instead.

Oh grief! Oh shame! Oh sorrow beyond understanding! The Prince of Light has died, and I am responsible. Oh horror!

At least, that's how it would be. Except for that angel sitting on the useless rock.

Instead of grief, the angel tells me to rejoice.

He sits on the stone to show me the empty cave that proves that all of my shame has been taken away. The angel on the rock tells me that Jesus is alive and that He has taken it all from me.

Because of the empty grave, it isn't sorrow that passes understanding, but peace!

Instead of horror, I find him showering me with honor - adoption into his own family! The Prince of Light has called me to stand with him as a member of his family and to know his Father as my own.

And now I am ready. I cannot wait for tomorrow to come. I want to worship Him now!

The Very Present Help

Psalm 46:1-3 [English Standard Version]

1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

Most people who live long enough face times when they feel their world collapse under them. This is such a terribly broken world that horror and pain come to all of us. If you don't know what I'm talking about, wait a little longer. It'll make sense eventually.

I don't mean to be depressing - just realistic. The world we live in is messed up, and awful things happen all around us all the time. Sometimes they touch us very personally. When that happens to you, I think your going through the kind of life event that the psalmist is writhing about here. "Though the earth gives way" he says. I've felt the earth give way. I've been through times in my life where things seemed to be fine, and then suddenly I'm in a ruined heap.

What do those times look like? It's different for everyone. Death of someone you love will often take the ground from beneath you. A lost pregnancy. A lost job. A church split is a big one. A slide back into addiction or the threat of it - the emotional pull that comes out of nowhere so unexpectedly and threatens to rip you apart. Unexpected illness - to hear that you have cancer will make you wonder if there is any solid ground anywhere. A relationship collapse - a divorce will tear the ground under the parents of the divorcing people, the children in the broken family, and separating spouses themselves. Or even something trivial like an undeserved chew out session from an angry boss.

When the world collapses under us, our typical first reaction is to complain and to wonder why. Why did this terrible thing happen to me, we wonder, as if I am special, and should be exempt from all the junk of the broken world. Why indeed. Why should it happen to other people and not to me? Somehow, I don't think of that question when life comes tumbling in on me.

Or else we just shut down. Our hearts fill up with fear and our minds lock up. If life can be this uncertain, what can I depend on? God didn't protect me from this - what else will he let fall on me?

What this psalm is trying to do to us is to redirect us when life does tumble in on us. To remind us that complaint and fear are not our only options.

When life gets so hard that it seems that there is no high ground to which we can run, when it seems that even the mountains have been swept away in the flood and the ground is no longer there to stand on - we can either react with terror and complaint or with faith and trust.

The words that are most encouraging in these verses are "very present help." It isn't just that he's there - he's really, really there! When trouble comes, and life gets as bad as it can get, and then it gets a little bit worse, don't you find that you become more aware of Him? Do you find that you look for him more when you are desperate for him?

I know I do. When I've been through really bad times, when nothing in my life seemed to be going well or to make sense, when I've soaked my pillow with tears at night, when the world around me has gone gray like someone turned down all the colors and I find myself trying to remember what it was like to laugh, in those bad times I find that I grow more in my faith, that I open myself up more to God.

And in those times, I find God to be safe.

When all else is bad, God is not. No matter how upset I am, He can handle all my pettiness, my pain, my raging heart. My hurt pours into Him, and what might really hurt someone else is simply gone when I give it to Him. And in the emptiness I find peace.

He is a refuge from the broken world - a safe place to go and find peace when my life has no peace.

He is strength when all my strength is gone. When life has exhausted me and I cannot go on any more, He is the one who makes it possible for me to go on. Why is it that so often I have to get all the way to exhausted before I turn to Him?

In the worst times of my life, He has been there. I have never faced a hard time alone. Even when I wasn't looking for Him, I can look back and see his influence. Even when I was looking for Him and couldn't see Him at the time, I can see His work later and know that He was there with me.

When the world falls away underneath you, run to the refuge. He is very present and wants to help you.

God is Salvation

Isaiah 12:1-2 [English Standard Version]

12:1 You will say in that day:
I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
that you might comfort me.

2 Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the Lord God is my strength and my song,
and he has become msalvationn.Â?

These words are deeply emotional words for me. I cannot read them without thinking of the cross. His anger turned away from me alright - it all was turned on Jesus. Every vile and twisted thing I've ever been was pushed onto Jesus so that God might become my comfort!

How amazing is this God of ours. He loves us so much that even while we are wicked he chooses to turn his anger aside. He makes that choice, and He also becomes one of us so that His terrible anger will have somewhere to go.

The wrath of God pours out of God and into God so that He might become our peace, our comfort and our salvation.

I will give thanks to you, O Lord. They are meaningful words, but they seem so small next to what He has done. How can I ever hope to give Him thanks enough? What words are there to express that? All of human language is small and weak next to God's amazing action. How can words ever be enough

So I will trust Him, and I will not be afraid. I think this is how I give Him my thanks - I live my life with faith in Him, trusting Him, and giving to Him every fear that threatens me. If He can be my salvation and rescuecue me from myself and from all my wretchedness, if He can turn His anger aside from my sins, surely He can handle my parenting problems, or my financial worries, or my health troubles. By trusting Him with all my life - that's how I put flesh on my thanks. Even as He put on flesh to be my forgiveness and my salvation, my trust is my thanks incarnate.

And when I begin to trust Him, I discover something wonderful. Something that my sin would hide from me if I stayed lost in my sins. When I trust Him, I find that He is truly everything I've ever wanted in my life. I would never have known how really wonderful it can be to be with God if I had only trusted myself. But trustin Him I find that just resting in His presence and being quiet with Him - this is life. I might have lived my whole life chasing things that would never give me peace. I might have lived all my life trying to prove to Him (or to the people around me or even just to myself) that I am really a good and loveable person. But when I trust Him, I find that He IS salvation from all of that.

God is not merely savior. He is salvation. To be with Him is heaven. He is paradise. In His presence is where the Kingdom is realized in my life. When I rest with Him, when I pray and know He is with me, when I meditate on His Word, I experience Him, and He is salvation. I am rescued from life without Him. With Him, I am not the weak man who fails all the time, but I become strong. With Him is empowerment to become who I dream I might be in the very best of my dreams. With Him, all of life becomes music and song.

All of this comes from Jesus, who gave himself for me so that the anger that I inspired in God might be turned away, and God might become my comfort and my salvation. What an amazing man He is. I love Him so much.