wreckage

This past May, a pair of tornadoes decided to pay a visit to Chickasha, OK, destroying numerous homes and properties and leaving their signature trails of destruction as mementos of their short stay.

One of my closest and lifelong friends lives in what was to the be warpath of the great, unstoppable soldier.

A few weeks ago, he took me around the surrounding few miles from his place, showing me where houses, barns, and trees once stood - now only concrete foundations, piles of bricks, and in many cases...nothing.

He was more fortunate. His house did not sustain any direct damage from the storm, but the rest of his property sure did. For all the colorful words that could be used to describe what I was looking at as we toured his once-beautiful country property, the most appropriate is "hopeless."

He lives there with his wife and young son, and the task at hand - cleaning the place up - was far greater than the two of them could pull off in fifty years. He and I put a dent in it together for several days, but so much was still to be done.

The 1/2-inch thick plate glass windows that once had provided a face for the property's then-defunct dairy stalls had exploded out from the barn, leaving piles of diamond-sized glass and shards as far as I could see or walk. The roof of that barn had been picked up by the windy warlord and slammed down on top of another barn with such force that it had buckled 7 or 8 steel I-beams underneath it.

Trees, limbs, shingles, tools, siding, barn skin...everywhere.

It almost didn't even look like the same place.

I don't have the skill with words to paint you an accurate picture of the destruction.

What I can tell you is how a handful of people made an immeasurable difference.

In all of about seven hours this past Saturday, some friends of mine and of his gathered to lend a helping hand in clearing out some of the bigger pieces of the mess - stuff he would never be able to do alone.

Many of the folks that came with me had never met him. They just came to help.

And help they did.

They walked onto a property that wasn't theirs and toiled tirelessly until it looked like the place it was meant to look like. Yeah, the barn was still missing and there's still a long way to go.

But it looks like home again. It looks like hope again.

As I scooped glass and loaded splintered lumber and ironworks into the dump truck, I made note of half a dozen analogies that could easily be applied to everyday life.

The question I kept asking myself through the days I spent there was, I wonder if this is how God sees his creation?

Most people don't know this (and wouldn't believe it if they were told), but Oklahoma has some pretty amazing countryside. This part of Oklahoma is no different. This was once a beautiful property that now looked like a testing site for bombing raids.

I wonder how God looks at his once-perfect creation as a whole - His flawless, untainted craftsmanship that now lies crippled by the most destructive force of all existence: sin.

I wonder if God looks at the "yard" of his property and longs for the day when the glass is cleaned up and it is safe again for his children to dig in the dirt.

I wonder if he looks at the barns of his backyard and sees his tools hanging neatly, and his inventory stored carefully again instead of being piled under the few hole-less parts of the roof.

I think God sees His creation as it was meant to be. I also think He sees it as it is today - ravaged and plundered, and a heap of wreckage.

I don't worry so much about how God sees it - but how we see it.

It's easy to shovel piles of wood and nails and clean up glass and burn fallen trees at my buddy's place and know that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.

It is as easy to see the downtrodden eyes of a sin-shattered world? Is it as urgent?

It's easy to see piles of wood and glass; it's less easy to see the task of redemption of the world that is going on around us.

I and many others helped my friend because he is my friend. There was One who did far greater things in His day.

He called us "friend."

He loves us because He wants to.

And in one small window of time, He condescended to this little ball of earth and water to set in motion the greatest cleanup crew history - the universe - will ever see.

When hopelessness permeated every atom of creation because of it's wrecked and lost condition, the love of God transcended reason, physics, and comprehension.

A child was born.

That child grew into a man.

That man was Jesus.

On splintered wood from a storm-beaten world, they hung His body to die for declaring that He was who He was.

And the storm came. Literally.

The earth shook at His death. THIS storm was different. It did not signal the coming of destruction, but its end.

This storm was not the cause of chaos and fear, but the beginning of life.

And three days later, the tomb they laid His body in was empty.

No tomb can hold the Son of the Living God. Death itself could not hold him.

Hope was restored.

The wreckage remains (for now), but the cleanup is underway.

The apostle John recorded Jesus as having said to him, "Behold, I am making all things new."

Indeed He is. For all that I could be impressed about on behalf of the crew that came to aid my friend, those are small beans when laid next to the eternal significance of the coming of Jesus.

My buddy was pretty overwhelmed at the effort that took place on his property for the sake of him and his family, by many who didn't even know him. He didn't deserve that. He wasn't even really sure why it was happening.

We sure don't deserve what happened on the cross, but it was initiated by a God who loves His creation and those in it enough to provide the way out - to provide hope, and at a high cost to Himself.

Why? Because He loves you. He loves me. To bring attention to the greatness of Christ, through whom hope is found and life is given to those who believe.

An invitation to go home again.

To have hope again.