I make a choice every day. It is a simple, mundane choice really. The question I have to answer is, do I feed my daughter this bowl of applesauce and plate of vegetables, or do I let her feed herself? 9 times out 10 the choice is for a few minutes of productivity elsewhere in the house or kitchen while she feeds herself. The trade off is the mess that I have to clean up when meal time is done. First the hands, then the face, then the tray, then the seat, then the floor, before you know the entire kitchen is shiny clean :).
I reflected on this mundane every day choice today...because with my choice to give my daughter freedom and independence comes the consequence of cleaning up the mess. God also made a choice, a choice to give us, you and me, fumbling messy children, a lot of freedom to choose. With our freedom, we make messes, just like my sweet daughter does with her dinner. We make messes like war, divorce, abuse, stealing, ...sinning.
Does God then come in and clean up after us just like a mommy? Well sometimes, but not always. As adults, given the freedom of choice, we most often have to sit in our mess and deal with our consequences in the short term.
But the bigger picture is that at the same time that God gave us the freedom to choose, he had an ultimate clean up plan. We hurt ourselves, each other, and God when we make messes, but God sent his Son, Jesus, to do clean up duty. He lived on earth as a man, was tortured and killed, buried, and then he rose back to life. Death, the ultimate mess, was cleaned up when Jesus conquered it and came back to life. Jesus is going to come back to earth again some day and he is going to finish cleaning up. The Bible says there will be a new heaven and a new earth, no more tears, no more sickness. No more mess.
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