Irrational, Undignified, a Gambler.

I sinned yesterday. No more trying on human strength, trying to set some kind of superhuman record, but only on His strength now.

I have failed as a person. But for every failure, there will be success because Christ has won the victory. Not me, but Him.

I've learnt a few more things about Him this week, and it never ceases to amaze me and touch me to find out more about what He's like. He was always like this, it's just that I never realised it.

He can sometimes be irrational. In Joshua 10 I read about how Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute from being destroyed along with the rest when they conquered Jericho. Even though he spared her, he still called her "Rahab the prostitute". "The prostitute". She would always be a prostitute in his eyes, and her name - Rahab - would always be synonymous with prostitution to him.

Yet God saw Rahab differently. She went on to become one of Jesus' ancestors. God saw her not as Rahab, the prostitute, but as Rahab, from whose lineage kings would come, not only human kings but the King of Kings.

It would have made more sense to choose someone more talented. Someone without a past. Someone who wasn't impure and a woman of the world in the eyes of the world. Someone a little more, you know, dignified. But He can sometimes be irrational, and He saw in her more than a prostitute. He saw in her a woman who had faith.

He can sometimes be irrational in that He valued my life more than His. Why would He set the price of His own life on my life and make it worth so much more? Simply because He valued my life more that He was willing to discard His own and keep mine. Why does He ask us to deny ourselves? Because He already did.

There are some things I don't understand about Him. And another of these things is that He is undignified.

What kind of dignified person would admit to someone he loved that he thought about him all the time? Yet God tells me that His thoughts of me outnumber the grains of sand, He tells me that He keeps my tears in a bottle, and He gets jealous of other loves in my heart. What kind of dignified person would do that?

When I realised that I had sinned and came back to Him with a heavy heart, He ran towards me. When He saw me from a great distance, He came running... tripping over stones, hair flying, blistered feet, joy in His eyes. What kind of an undignified God do I have?

He was a gambler too. When He loved you, He took the risk that you might never love Him back. But He did so anyway.

This poem by G.A. Studdert-Kennedy always moved me as a teenager. I can still remember the day I read it and copied it into the front page of my diary. It's called "The Ununtterable Beauty".


The Ununtterable Beauty

And sitting down they watched Him there,

The solders did;

There, while they played with dice,

He made His sacrifice, And died upon the cross to rid

God’s world of sin.

He was a gambler, too, my Christ,

He took His life and threw

It for a world redeemed.

And ere His agony was done, Before the westering sun went down,

Crowning that day with crimson crown,

He knew that He had won.

Irrational, undignified, a gambler too, my Christ. Thank you for loving me with such an undignified love.