Stop Signs

I love Oswald Chambers book, My Utmost for His Highest. My reading today was how all of our desire to point people to God must include the message of the cross. It is not a kindness to just point out God's love and provision without the understanding that none of us are worthy to approach a holy God. I find this message easy because I am painfully aware of my short comings and inadequacies. I am forever failing, and usually over and over again in the same stupid ways. For those human beings who are better than me, and that is most of them, the message that we are all sinners in need of a savior falls on deaf ears, because many of us think we are pretty A-ok.

On my morning run, I was contemplating that message, and was thinking about the book I am writing. There is so much pain and grief and despair in the world that I long to write with humor and joy. Yet, I asked myself, was I circumventing the very horrific message of the cross- the gruesome death that a righteous, sinless man suffered that we might recognize the intense ugliness of sin? At that very moment, I glanced up. There was a stop sign with graffitti on it. Words in white spray paint adorned the word Stop, so the sign cheerfully shouted, "Don't Stop Smiling."

Of course, I smiled. What a lovely message! I think we do need to Stop, like Chambers admonished, and recognize first that there was a reason Jesus had to die on the cross..... but then we move on to the other side of the cross, and the eternal joy that represents. If we are not smiling as Christians, I think we miss the point.