My two year-old daughter Clarissa has a cough. Now she has had a cough/cold in the past, but this one just seems downright awful. She is constantly coughing. In fact she has been barking so much and so hard that it has made her gag and even puke a number of times now.
This morning I laid in bed and I could hear her repeatedly coughing, followed by crying. I prayed that God would take away her cough. I wished that somehow I could take that uneasiness away from her and take it on myself.
I've found that to be a theme in my short time as a father. I've always heard people say, "When you have a kid (or kids) you realize what love really is.", but I never really knew what that meant. I mean I have and do love people. I love my parents and I love my wife, but being a dad has given me a new definition of love.
Love from my kids comes in different ways. It comes from their laughter when I'm tickling them. It comes from the horsie rides around the living room and it comes from the excitement in their voices and actions when I walk in the door after work.
John 15:13 says,
"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."
We know who this is that's being talked about here right? Jesus was willing to do something that nobody else could do, something that was going to be far from easy, but something that must be done to pay for our sinfulness.
On Jesus' way to the cross, he recognized something important. He realized that even in His suffering His father loved him. He realized that He could take away something that they (we) couldn't take away and He did it.
Just like I want to take away my daughter's pain, Jesus has already taken away my pain, and your pain and all of our pain. Look at this:
"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." (I John 2:2)
Right now we have Clarissa on a steroid and an antibiotic, but these things will not ultimately cure her cough. God's son Jesus Christ was the cure, the answer, the ultimate sacrifical love offering for you and for me and for the world. Praise God we have a Savior that cared about us enough, to die a horrible death.
"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
