Escorial and some jumbled thoughts...

I have to admit that before my trip out of the city today, I hadn't really been convinced that Spain was a beautiful country. Madrid is a great city, but the climate is pretty arid and the terrain is a bit uninteresting. But as I headed out of the city by train this morning towards Escorial (a quaint historical town at the base of the striking mountains), I saw a different side of Spain... much more green, deer and other wildlife feeding on the vegetation of the rolling hills, towns with century-old structures, gorgeous blue skies with bright white clouds, and of course the incredible mountains as an impressive backdrop... it was gorgeous! I just kept thinking, "there is no way a picture could capture this kind of beauty!". I tried anyway. We'll see how those pictures turn out...

Now on to my most current thoughts here in Spain. I've noticed that as my friends warned me, the spiritual atmosphere of this country (and the majority of Europe, for that matter!) is quite dark and cynical regarding "church". I've spent alot of my time here just talking to people about their view on God as I try to soak in the spiritual culture in my generation and in the overall culture of Spain.

It makes me sad to see what the "church" has become through the centuries and how human mistakes, power struggles, and greed have hardened many people's hearts to anything slightly connected to Christ. I sometimes become discouraged and think, "how sad is Jesus to see the state of His Church?". Then I am reminded of God's incredible ability to use even our bumbling mistakes for His greater purposes. It doesn't make much sense to me that Jesus chose to leave the continuation of His ministry to such imperfect people as us, but He did. So, what are we supposed to do with the many inconsistencies and mistakes that cynics quickly point out in thte history (and current state) of the church?

Well, I am finding that returning to Jesus as the true "Church" seems to be the best way for me to understand it for myself. We as the church have been given the role of "physical body of Christ" here in the world around us. Although we sometimes take things into our own hands and make mistakes (actually, a little more often than sometimes, unfortunately), God, in His awesome creativity, turns even the ugliest of mistakes into an opportunity to display His grace, power, and incredible sovereignty. Wow. God is so good to allow us an opportunity to be a part of what He is doing! He could do it all on His own, but He would rather give us an opportunity to grow in maturity and love for Him and others instead of choosing the method that would make the most sense in human terms- expediency.

A few more thoughts before they are forever lost in my jumbled brain... why are people really rejecting the incredible opportunity to receive the grace and incredible love that Christ has provided through the cross? I'm finding more and more that the people who most quickly reject Christ's grace are those who would rather do things on their own. It doesn't make sense that a Holy, powerful, magnificent Creator of the universe would stoop to our level, experience everything that we experience, allow suffering to enter His life, not claim His rightful place as King, be humiliated, scorned, and rejected, take the heaviness and darkness of humanity's sin upon himself, die, then conquer death to give hope to all of the creation that had been separated from Him. Wow. It really does seem quite ridiculous for the kind of God that we know, doesn't it?

...Or maybe not. If this God is the originator of love and of every good thing that we experience, wouldn't it make sense that He would choose the most intense display of love that humanity could ever comprehend in order to reconcile the break in relationship between a completely holy God and those He created? What incredible love! And how incomprehensible are the ways of our awesome God! I guess it's difficult for our "figure out what works for you" world to accept something that takes the control away from us and forces us to accept something that makes no human sense and that does not allow for us to work it out for ourselves. Grace is a pretty tough concept for most of us to swallow, yet God's desire was to make it easy for us to come to Him. How ironic...

If you read through this whole blog, I'm impressed. And if you have followed everything, I'm even more impressed! Keep in mind that I just type from my current stream of thoughts, so sometimes things can ramble for awhile. I'm glad that God can follow my jumbled thoughts!