The knowledge of evil

July 23, 2011

I'm so hurt & broken by human suffering, by what our sins have done to us, by the vicious cycle of hiding.  We have all believed the lie that we have never been loved, the lie that was told to Adam & Eve.  Oh humanity what have we done? All of us have lost the innocence of knowing we are loved. Sure we have knowledge, like the enemy promised: knowledge of suffering, hurt, pain, devastation.

The knowledge that we lost, because we gained knowledge of evil, is that we are loved. But God restores this knowledge to us.

But we run to other humans to try to gain the knowledge that we are loved. Human love will never be enough for us.  We are broken cisterns that will run dry. 

We are all shadows. Everything here on earth is a shadow of the reality in Christ. My dad was never supposed to be the real thing.  The best my dad had to offer me is just a shadow of who God is, & I can look to the shadow to expect something greater. 

My dad couldn't give me what I needed-who could?  The truth I am coming to realize is the only one who could give me knowledge that I am loved is God.  God's essence is love.  From Him can we be loved.  He is the source. 

This happens by the cross.  The cross tells us we are loved & God absorbs the knowledge of evil.  God has cried all the tears of the world.  The hurt & brokenness I feel is a small magnitude of what God felt on the cross.  God put our tears in His bottle like the psalmist says & poured them out on the cross when He took our shame, our sin & everything that comes with sin.  All the repercussions: pain, sorrow, anxiety, heart break. 

What we feel, You've felt more. You've been feeling for all eternity, since You had the cross in mind before the foundations of the world.  What You have done to show Yourself fully intimate, fully close must far outweigh any hurt, pain, or devastation that You endured.  Your Father heart fully arrayed in love must be so worth it that all the suffering that ever happened, all the sin of the world combined can't even taint what You are going to show us.  For You had this all planned out.  And You counted the cost & in Your everlasting wisdom, You saw that the end would far outweigh the means. 

 The pain is worth the thunder