Practicing this morning being open-handed with God. Taking a moment to re-offer into His ownership and control all the things that are most precious and important to me. If you haven’t tried that or done it recently, it’s scary and hard. Surrender is scary and hard. But it’s a way I try to make my faith and my love for God real.

Today, it prompted contemplation over how God relates to us and our experiences. He gave up arguably the most important thing to Him for the good of His creation, which included us – a mass of belligerent, skeptical, sour, hurt, evil people. He let His Son enter this world; experience its discomforts, hardships, and disappointments; live a normal life; and then die an abnormal, terrible death at the hands of those He wanted and wants to redeem.

But He got His Son back. In three days’ time. And those among us who have lost children, or other loved ones, or are estranged from family or are waiting to hear about their condition or don’t know if they’ll ever hear from or of someone they love again – how does God understand those experiences? Can He? Can He understand the intricacies of the loss I’m risking if I surrender the things I love most to something outside my control?

Can You, God?

-LS