The view from the bridge

For the past few months, I've picked up my friend every Sunday morning before heading out to church. She lives in Coronado so it means I get to drive the wonderful bridge a couple times that day!

The first trip across takes my breath away and makes me laugh because I think the same thing every single week: 

 "Wow! It's SO beautiful! I forgot! Man it's so clear! Look! there's Mexico and Point Loma and the Dell! Wow the water is blue! Wow it's a beautiful day!"

And then the day goes on. I pick up my friend, we drive back across the bridge and speed on up to church.. Service starts at 10am and I still manage to have to speed to barely walk in at its start. We find a seat. We hear a sermon. We typically share a meal somewhere fun or that we've been craving and then we either make more plans or I drive her back across the same bridge to her island home.

At this point, we're engulfed in conversation or singing along or making more plans and I MAY notice how pretty Coronado is. Sometimes we regroup from there and venture out again and I may even have to drive that curved blue bridge back one more time and that third time I usually don't notice any beauty at all (unless the Dell is lit up for Christmas).

It cracks me up because for as long as I've lived here, while I have and do and will always love its palm tree lined streets and silver sandy beaches and warm sunshine-y days, I tend to forget how pretty it actually is. But when I hit halfway up the bridge on a clear Sunday morning I am overwhelmingly reminded of its beauty.

Too often, this is also my approach to the gospel. Yes, it is a crying shame that at any point I may neglect the beauty of San Diego living. But it's an absolute TRAVESTY if I live all week long forgetting the beauty of the gospel! In fact, my life becomes a big fat wreck if I do that. It's not meant to be a once-a-week visit to the Chiropracter for an adjustment or even more dementedly thought, a one-time vaccination to safeguard me from hell. I positively need its beauty, it's grandeur, it's divine intervention every single moment of all of my days.

I need to be sustained by its good news of grace so that I am not consumed by over-analyzing myself or my day or my surroundings or my feelings. I need its freeing power from debilitating shame that wants to cling to me like the biggest wad of gum you've ever stepped in. I need its truth so that my brain isn't bombarded and overtaken by desire or disgust. I need its hope so that there's a point for being where I'm at doing what I'm doing. I need its kindness to motivate me to love people because they can truly suck sometimes. I need its comforting embrace that assures me that it is going to be okay and that I will be taken care of and that God is who He says He is. I need its empowering to have any chance at all of living a worshipful life of self control and patience and any thing good at all. I need the gospel. I need to preach its peace to myself and experience it every day all day and never grow tired or desensitized to it!

I heard it preached a few weeks back from Ken Sande...I guess he lived in Colorado at one point and said that no matter how long he lived there every trip to the Rocky Mountains blew him away. But he noticed that as he drove home the mountains got small (literally and figuratively). I remember that feeling of awe every time I travel somewhere new. The food, the culture, the architecture or people are this big amazing discovery that we just grow accustomed to til its no longer a big deal.

BUT THE GOSPEL IS A BIG DEAL!

The biggest deal.

So we must filter our lives through the sift of the gospel. How will the gospel be the biggest of deals in _______ area in my life. What can I do to always remember the beauty of the gospel? In this instance, I'm blogging about it. At other moments today it looked like me biting my tongue or even apologizing when I felt I was right.  

In other areas of life, I don't even know what the answer is. My brain actually laughs a little because I see no plausible answer, but I know that Jesus is in the business of making a way for the gospel- His love for us manifested through His sinless life and unfair death and victorious resurrection-- to be exalted. It always finds a way to reach us and our lives and our issues and our perspectives.

Tonight, My prayer is just that no part of my heart or life remains unreached this truth.