I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us?
PSALM 8:3-4 (MSG)

Somehow, in all of what God has made (and is presently sustaining), he BOTHERS with us — with me. We live in a world where we are constantly being reminded that we are mostly bothersome. Even more honestly, we’ve become trained that other people are mostly bothersome to us. Somehow the God-given dignity inherent in all people loses its primacy the moment we get a little annoyed. This is the reason flight attendants, restaurant servers, families slowly pushing a double-jogger stroller on a sidewalk, and inattentive drivers lose their “human being credentials” when we get annoyed… bothered. They are an obstacle to our real, true, full experience of life.

Yet, God chooses to “bother” Himself with us. If there is anyone capable of causing annoyance, it’s us. We are perpetually needy. We are always unsatisfied. We live under the belief that we need and deserve more. But, God chose us. He still chooses us everyday. He willingly chooses to listen to us. He chooses to continue to give gifts. And, when the rest of His majestic creation continues to treat us like we’re somehow in the way of their full experience of life, He welcomes us in His presence, treating us as though we were “a little lower than the angels” PSALM 8:5 (NIV).

This Sunday, we’ll begin our series on relationships called “Beautiful Mess”. All those people we love (and someday hope to love) — the ones that drive us crazy — they’re the ones who help to create both the beauty and the mess of being together. It is my hope, that at least in some small way, that reality — that God finds us worthy enough to bother himself with us, will sink in. Because, it is in the experience of being deeply loved that we are able to love deeply, transforming the mess (however messy it is) into beauty.  Be sure to include someone in need of relational hope or help.

Looking forward to being together this Sunday,
Jeff