Today, I'm grateful for life.

It's really crazy to think that had it not been for God's intervention four years ago, I wouldn't be alive. So today, I'm beyond grateful for what He has given to me: my life, redemption, and a new chance to live apart from my selfishness and pride. This God is a God of miracles. Not only has he saved my physical life, he's saved my soul from the clutches of sin. Not only has he healed my physical body, he's healed my spiritual being.

But what about the thousands, the millions of those that die by their own hand or by tragedies outside of their control? How is it that I can stand here while they have the flames of their lives snuffed out as quickly as they came flickering into this world? It's a twisted, broken world that we live in, a world caught up in the darkness that invaded the perfection that God had intended for Man. This world is full of decay, disease, and death. And each day is a painful reminder of our frail nature here on earth as we read headline after headline about the newest death or injustice or war or tragedy. Each day is a painful reminder that here, where we live, is not our intended home. We were made to be with God.

But what arrogance it is to declare that God's plans supersede our own! What arrogance it is to declare that we are sinful, messed up people! What arrogance it is to say that Jesus is the only way, that God is the only god, that the way that we live is just not right! What arrogance it is that God has chosen some people to live and others to die- how unfair! What arrogance it is that God has 'plans' for those who live, but not for those who die young and unexpectedly!

But what kind of arrogance bends down to the smallest creatures and provides for them? What kind of arrogance would give breath to the smallest infant? What kind of arrogance would grant life to a race of individuals who would grow into rebels decrying their own maker? What kind of arrogance would stoop to love the poor and fatherless, to heal the sick and broken? What kind of arrogance would lay down its own life to provide peace for the helpless? What kind of arrogance is this?

We make up answers as to who has given us life as if we're afraid to look bigger than ourselves and accept that perhaps there is one greater who has crafted each soul carefully and lovingly. We look past any existence of a God, refusing to believe that we are responsible for each action we take and thought we have. But what if there was a God that did painstakingly handcraft each life that we see around us? Who would we think we were, questioning him? If he had plans for every single life, we wonder, why then are so many ended early and unfairly? Perhaps it's not enough just to say that we can't ask. I just don't know the answer, but he does. But it's not as if each life is wasted. No, each life, in its own way, points further to the depravity of Man and the glory of God, no matter how early or late it is ended.

We can't choose our lives. They're given to us. Gifted to us. We don't hold the rights to our lives. They're privileges. Who are we to take our lives for granted, then? We don't know this moment from the next or what's going to happen in five years or if we'll even be alive in five years. We're the arrogant ones. We're the ones thinking that we have complete control over our lives when we can't even predict our own deaths. That's the only thing that we can all really be sure of. We will die.

...But that's what makes life beautiful... because in life, there is hope beyond death, and it can be found in the person of Jesus Christ. He is life embodied, through and through. He is hope eternal, and his message and life provide the answers our hearts yearn for. Look to Him, friend. I beg of you; I plead with you. His death has brought me life- and this is no stereotypical Christian lingo here- the truth of His life and death has literally brought me from the verge of death. Look to Him and see who He really is.

He paints a better picture of life than I could ever hope to sketch.

-

I don't deserve this life that I live. With each breath that I take, I realize more and more how blessed I really am. I'm actually breathing. I'm actually living.

Today, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for life.