Like So Many Cattle

"I have come to believe that God is madly in love with us. God loves us with a passionate love. It is too great for us to comprehend; we do not have the words to describe it fully....But we can know it. And we can feel it.
~Embracing the Love of God, James Bryan Smith HarperCollins Publication, 1995, pg 12

God simply must be mad in His great love for us. For as the Scripture says, who will lay down his life for a bad man? Which of us would consider diving in front of a fast-moving train to save a total stranger? Possibly, yes...but if that person happened to be someone who had raped or killed a family member? That would probably affect the choice we made to leap in front of danger, tossing ourselves on the grenade.
Here then, is Someone willing to die in my place for the dreadful things I have done, do and will do. Not only that, He loves me, lends me His comfort, His strength, His teaching. He is ever there...all I need do is open the door.

It is simply too easy in the world we live in to become blase, self-centered people. We really would much rather do exactly what we want, and never mind anyone else. So often in our lives we begin to walk down this treacherous path. We ignore all the warning signs of our withering spirit, and march happily on to the slaughterhouse like so many cattle.

"The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace," Rm 8.6

There are times when I am just too overwhelmed by sickness. Times I just sit and cry because of the misery and the disappointments. A book said it so well, something along the lines of "I disappoint myself, but worse is disappointing someone else." And yet I simply cannot help disappointing someone sometimes. There are times I just lay down on the floor because I feel so sick it is too much effort to get to bed.
Being trapped in illness is an excellent time to be attacked spiritually. You are at a low ebb, and you are alone, miserable. The perfect petri dish for spiritual bacteria. A life of death.
Yet reaching out for God fully, with all my heart, shows me His great love. I have been somewhat lax about it, having not been faithfully sitting and studying. It makes a huge difference in the depth of my devotion and obsession. However, I can still vividly recall one night in particular, when I had taken any medication I could, and still felt so terrible. I just wanted to die. I cried out to God, and there He was! I am not much of "spooky" person, if you want to describe it that way....but it really did feel as if some great arms were holding me, wiping the tears from my face, chasing the evil from the room. I was able to relax, feel somewhat better being "held" and loved so incredibly, fully, completely....and so in the feeling of being in His arms, in His peace, in His love, I fell asleep.

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh,a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Cor 12.7-9