One of my favorite places on the planet is the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. There’s a spot out by Williams Creek Reservoir that I’d love to take you. You’d see mountains, water, trees, wildlife, and most of all space. Lots of space.
It’s not that crowds bother me, it’s just that I don’t like being confined. Some people love the hustle and bustle of busy places, being where everyone else is. That’s cool, but what I love are wide open spaces. An empty road that shoots out for miles. A single track trail that meanders through a meadow. Or, a day’s schedule that is blank. When I think about different wide open spaces, the essence of all of them is the same: they give a sense of freedom, movement, and above all they are welcoming.
Okay, if natural earth-bound places can provide such release, shouldn’t the people, things, and experiences that surround God do the same? I mean God created the San Juan Mountains, my guess is He knows all about wide open spaces. Then why are His people so often narrow, limiting, boring, impassionate? It’s like we’re living in a crowded confined environment that stifles life and limits freedom.
John’s yelling at us, can’t you hear him?
“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” (John 1:16)
People who have studied this verse will tell you that the literal translation would be something like this, “The essence, the first impression, the focal point, of Jesus is that He gives grace, then more grace, then more grace, then more grace, then more grace, then more grace, then more grace, then more grace…”
A woman who understood this wrote a song:
His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again (Annie J. Flint, 1928)
So even if you and I can’t go to the San Juans, we can go to Jesus who will give us freedom, movement, and above all will welcome us again, again, again, again, and again.
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