Complicated, intricate, perplexing, difficult, and beyond the grasp of anyone else to handle. That is how most of us would describe daily portions of our lives. We live and breathe and move by the grace of our creator without having to acknowledge His kindness and mercies. We struggle through intense trials wondering why if He is so good, must we endure such times. So I too want to express my sentiments about all of the relationships I have experienced in my life. I can do that very easily in one word; Overwhelmed.
The evil which is visited upon the innocent and defenseless by greedy and monstrous people pretending to have any understanding of the purpose of life overwhelms me. It is not just their selfish desires and wickedness. It is more than the devastation reigned down upon those who have no recourse but to receive the travesties their lives were never intended to have. It is the totality of pure anti godliness straight from the pits of hell which has consumed the human instruments who are merely tools and pawns in the great spiritual warfare. As they who willing participate endeavor to excel in the depths of their wickedness are overwhelmed by the power that consumes who they were intended to be, so I am overwhelmed to simply watch it happen.
The patience and enduring mercy of the living indwelling Spirit of the creator God who sees all things as though they already were, overwhelms me. His compassion and desire for the souls of suffering people in the world He made to glorify Himself is like a high tower beyond the ability of the strongest man to scale. The depths of His love and efforts to redeem those who have been chained and imprisoned by an evil they cannot even see let alone understand are deeper than the oceans we cannot reach the bottom of. The cost which He is willing to pay as ransom to reclaim what was rightfully His and stolen by surreptitious subterfuge, is greater than can be gained in many lifetimes by the most industrious activities. I am so overwhelmed, by such outlandish mercy, which I cannot achieve.
The unmitigated gall of someone to ever expect that forgiveness exists for them and what they have done to me overwhelms me. No level of mental capacity could prepare my mind or heart to even consider that someone should be allowed to go free from just compensation for their atrocities. Beyond that barrier of intellectual rationalization is the concept that I should accept the loss to myself, at my expense, while placing that perpetrator on an equal footing with those who have only done me good all the days of my life is beyond my ability. Who would dare to suggest that I could rise to that level of sainthood? I am overwhelmed by such barbarity. And yet…
I stand with the atrocious offenders. I have willingly and purposely offended a Holy God. I have injured and defamed His chosen servants. I am in need of overwhelming forgiveness. He compares my slightest whimsical affront to the heinous horrors of the worst criminals of history. Sin is sin and every single sin has the same cost for redemption. In order for me to be overcome with the grace He offers, I too must extend it to others. I like Jesus must accept the full consequence of the affront of others. I suffer the lost without demanding retribution. I have to be overwhelmed by the grace and mercy and love and price which He has given. To be overwhelmed is to extend to those who have cost you so much more than any human should ever endure, the greatest treasure ever known to man. I the most unworthy one, extend to you, my greatest opposer, freedom in forgiveness. I am overwhelmed in sin if I do otherwise. I am overwhelmed in extreme eternal love if I do.