Anything Else In All Creation

             For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.   (Romans 8:38-39)

          Oh, I have to chuckle. Yesterday, I spent several hours trying to come up with something to write about these verses, and ended up switching to Colossians 3:1-2. Today, these verses were my Bible platform’s verse-of-the-day. You think God might want me to look at them?

          But I really did need yesterday’s lesson first. If you’re like me, the instant you focus on verses like today’s your mind either sticks its fingers in its ears and says “Na, na, na, na, hmm, na, na. I can’t hear you,” “Liar,” or something similar. Anything that means you don’t have to think about any love that makes you uncomfortable because it’s out of your control. My reaction to love is similar to my reaction to the idea of placing my heart in God’s care. I’m not cringing at that idea at the moment.

          Why would anyone have a negative reaction to love? Yesterday, I wrote about being klutz who has to put things on a counter (or shelf) two or three times before they stay, and about the possibly apocryphal cat that knocks things off of shelves. The cat has marvelous aim. Things it knocks off the shelf don’t land on the floor, the don’t even land in a clean toilet. They land in a bucket full of the worst possible combinations of sewage. And, shifting the analogy a little – we are among the things it knocks into the bucket.

          When we are covered with mud, blood, sewage, dirt, sweat, or paint, we tend to be reluctant to touch someone, let alone hug them. Love? Yeah, nice, but “Don’t touch!” Maintain that separation that today’s verses reject. And the separation we try to maintain isn’t for our benefit. We claim it’s for the benefit of God. We’re already a mess. We don’t want His robes to be covered with this stuff.

          And that takes me back to my friend who called the characters in Fellowship of the Ring “noble.” They were covered with road dust, grime, and filth. They volunteered to get covered with road dust and grime for the benefit of others. God was willing to be filthy so that we could be clean and safe. It’s already done. I can’t protect God from it because He’s already removed it. But somehow, I have a hard time keeping that on my “shelf.”

          And because it doesn’t come easily, I need to consciously look for it and put it back on the shelf.