The Miracle Working Apple Seed
I peeled an apple for my 2-year-old grandson. As he was eating it, a seed became visible. He pointed to it and said, "bug!" So I explained that it was really a seed and that if he planted it in the ground it would grow into a huge tree and the tree would grow more apples with more seeds in them.
As I attempted to explain this to him, I realized how this had to sound so incredible, even magical, to him. He hadn't lived long enough to see these things and to learn to take them for granted, like the rest of us. In his innocent state, hearing about the power of an apple seed for the first time sounded like the stuff of fairytales.
Sadly, the awe and wonder of childhood fades with age as we learn to take the miracles of life for granted.
How much wiser we would all be if we could just go back and see the world again for the first time. If we could see the world through the eyes of a child.
Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).
God Was Silent
The annals of history are full of instances of the miscarriage of justice, of innocents wrongly accused, and worse yet, wrongly punished. Due to the prevalence of these injustices, the Innocence Project was founded.
From its webpage we read, "The Innocence Project is a nation litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice."
The men and women who belong to the project are go-getters, tenacious, unrelenting in the efforts the right wrongs, clear names, and tip the scales of justice back in favor of the innocent.
If the innocence project had existed when Jesus received His farce of a trial they might have jumped all over the case. Surely a DNA test would prove conclusively that Jesus was in fact the very Son of God--sinless!
Yet God, the author of justice, was there and did nothing. To have intervened would have been to have thwarted His own plan for our redemption.
Author Max Lucado, in his book THE APPLAUSE OF HEAVEN, has this to say:
It wasn't right that spikes pierced the hands that formed the earth. And it wasn't right that the Son of God was forced to hear the silence of God. It wasn't right, but it happened. For while Jesus was on the cross, God sat on his hands. He turned his back. He ignored the screams of the innocent. He sat in silence while the sins of the world were placed upon his Son. And he did nothing while a cry a million times bloodier than John's echoed in the black sky: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Was it right? No.
Was it fair? No.
Was it love? Yes.
"About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which means 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' " (Matthew 27:46).
Max Lucado is one of the most beloved American authors and speakers of this generation. Most of his books have appeared on one or more best seller lists, including those published by the "New York Times," "USA Today," "Publishers Weekly," and the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA).
Show Me My Faults
I have refereed soccer for 25 years. As a referee, I am there to be a non-biased authority and to enforce the rules. After all these years, it still amazes me how often players give me that incredulous look, as if to say (sometimes they do verbalize it) "Who me? No way! I didn't do that!" In their mind, they are always completely innocent.
In the game of life the goal is to obey and to please God. To accomplish this, we all need a non-biased authority, someone whom we allow to speak truth into our lives. Otherwise, we will think we're innocent when we're not. We must have an atitude that says "show me my faults so I can rectify them!" Spend time in the "Rule Book" and then ask the ultimate non-biased authority to hold you accountable to His rules. Only then will you be innocent.
"Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer" (Psalm 19:12-14).