"At the deepest levels of our humanity, it is true that we are prone to wander, prone to sin, prone to flee from God. But it was in our deepest state of ruin, our deepest plunge into sinfulness, when God stepped forward unwilling to let us remain in such a state...Long before we could even articulate our lostness, God in his mercy set out to find us, setting forth a plan to make right within us all that is awry."
-Jill Carattini

...Just as our nature is to sin, to be selfish, to take, to strut around in self importance, to demand our rights...it is God's NATURE to LOVE, to help, rescue, to give, to right what is wrong, to have mind boggling mercy and totally undeserved grace. He reached out to save us because he could not turn his back on us..it would go against his nature, the fiber of his being. This gives me pause, this understanding that just as I know all too well how I'm hard wired, realizing fully that he is different..the opposite, in fact. The way I sometimes give - grudgingly, thinking of what it costs me, is not his way at all. It is not hard for him to love, as it is for me..he IS love itself. No wonder he tells us that "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation..the old has passed away, the new has come!" (1 Cor. 5:17. To follow Jesus is to live against all our flesh holds dear. This seems hopeless and futile, but with God, nothing is impossible. In his love, he helps us along, in his grace, he forgives our stumbling, in his mercy, he pays himself for our debts, a price we could never meet ourselves.