Inconvenience (plus a thank you for boxes!)

4-20-09 First of all, a big THANK YOU to Mom for the three boxes I received on Friday. The steak sauce surprised, and the size sixteen jeans fit! Everything else is also much appreciated--especially the raisins and Pringles (I was surprised by them, too). Thanks a bunch!

Second, I want to share this story with you: I was walking to our AY meeting on Saturday afternoon. The wind whipped my skirt against my legs (at least it wasn't a day when the wind makes me glad I wear shorts underneath my skirt) and my shirt rippled across my stomach, and I thought, "How terribly inconvenient is it that I've lost so much weight here. Nice, but inconvenient."

Inconvenience, as defined by my handy dandy computer dictionary, is "trouble or difficulty caused to one's personal requirements or comfort." My weight loss can be considered inconvenient because of the lack of readily buyable clothes to replace my beginning-to-be-too-big wardrobe, which causes me to wear the clothes I brought with me in August (which do not fit and thus, flap in the wind). Despite the inconvenience, I still chose to lose weight because it's a change I wanted to make. My desire outweighed the inconvenience (though I will love to wear clothes that fit again!), and made my decision to lose weight easy, yet difficult.

Then a profound thought struck me (rather than the sort-of vain one I had just been having). The profound thought was that anything that effects great change is, at least at first, inconvenient. No, strike that. Anything that introduces great change is inconvenient. New ideas, upheavals of people, wars, etc., usually seem to be inconvenient, whether or not they affected great change. (That is not what I'm arguing here.)

The greatest change for the human race came when Jesus chose to descend from heaven, live among us, and die for us. Think about it. Jesus traded omnipotence for the strength of a carpenter's arm, a throne for a manger, being the King of the universe to being a peasant (from being Ruler to being ruled), and having the adoration of the universe for the scorn, hatred, and rejection at the hands of beings He'd created. Taken from a purely Earth-bound human viewpoint, that was a terribly inconvenient choice.

But check out John 17:24: "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world" (NKJV, bolding mine). Jesus' desire to save us outweighed the inconvenience of coming down to live and die among us. His desire to have us with Him affected His choice--it's why He came, it's why He lived here for thirty-three and a half years, it's why He died to save us--so we could be with Him forever. Anyone who has read the account of Jesus in Gethsemane can see that it was a difficult decision for the Man Jesus, but an easy one for the God who loved us so much that He made us despite the knowledge that we would trangress His law and separate ourselves from Him. Jesus made a tough choice because His desire outweighed the inconvenience. It was a change He wanted to make--a great change, one that required great and terrible inconvenience to Himself--but wasn't it worth it?

More later.