The Ache of Goodness

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

- Gen 1:31, NIV

I was working on some stock photos for a brochure a couple of days ago, and was coming across some pretty amazing images. I was in search of a particular kind of forest scene - one that was actually a little foreboding - and in the process I saw probably hundreds of pictures of autumn in the forest.

Now fall has always been somewhat mesmerizing for me. I get caught up in the colors and the crispness of the air and the blueness of the sky... and that incredible smell of leaves. I often go to the park and walk the trails, praying, thinking, contemplating my surroundings and just becoming immersed in the experience. But something else always seems to accompany this encounter with beauty, and if I could find a word to capture it, I might say that it's a feeling of profound sadness... it's an ache.

And with all of this, of course, come the memories. Times from so many years ago when I could actually enjoy this sort of thing - playing football among the leaves with my buddies or maybe driving around with my mom and dad checking out all the parks at peak color - without the weight that I seem to just always feel pressing on my shoulders. The worries. The questions about what has become of life and where the hopes and promises went. The disappointments. The stuff out of order and unfinished. You know. The Ache.

I've been perplexed about all of this for a long time now. I am really, truly learning how to respond to the rhythms of my heart and I'm so thankful to God for bringing me to this awareness. But I never could understand why every exposure to some kind of beautiful or joyful moment that would resonate in my heart has always seemed to be accompanied by this... Ache.

That is, until last night.

I found a tape of a three-year old message from a BCC Saturday night. I was curious because there was no title information on the label. And so I played it. And I think I got an answer about the Ache.

What I was preaching about on this tape was one of two messages I have done over the years on innocence. What I didn't preach about was the Ache. But I discovered something about it through the tape. Its source. Its power. Its persistence. And I think I know now why stuff that is truly good and pure and beautiful brings pain at some level of our hearts sometimes.

We Ache because we grieve. You see, something was forever lost to our natural lives all the way back in Genesis 3. We lost God. The garden. The Tree of Life. Our lives. Our hearts. We lost our innocence. And every reflection of that kind of beauty, that kind of goodness, that kind of purity and wholeness and holiness (and this is so visible in creation!) reminds our broken places of what we have lost. We have lost the very essence of the goodness of who we were made to be. And that can touch at the deepest levels of our souls.

And so we mourn. We Ache.

But God is saying something here. Whispering deeper than the pain in our hearts. Reminding us to see what He does. He sees us new. And whole. And pure. And good. And righteous. And innocent. No, it's not our inherent goodness, but the goodness and beauty and wholeness and purity He brings about in us in Jesus.

But it's not just a way God "sees" us. It's true. It's real. It's who we are... pure, whole, good - beautiful! And yet we would struggle at some level to believe this. Life becomes so cold, so dark, so ugly... so full of pain. And God says He loves us, and it's so hard to get that.

Isn't it?

I mean, every kind of love most of us have ever known has come with those conditions. Those qualifiers. Those stipulations. And now we have God who just says He loves us. period. That He is love. Period. And it's so hard to believe it. To really fall in love with Him. To respond to that love in purity... or goodness... or innocence.

And so, we ache. And we'll keep aching when we encounter beauty until we accept the beauty of God... of us... of our lives and our hearts.

My prayer for all of us who hunger and thirst for righteousness(and goodness and beauty and wholeness) to come alive in us is that of Paul, when he prayed in Ephesians 3 that we would know the love of Christ that passes knowledge; that we would be filled up with the fullness of God. Because in that fullness there is all that is good and pure and beautiful.

And only in that fullness is there no more Ache.

Jesus, help us know your love in such reality that there is nothing in us but the fullness of You; of Your love!

Live Courageous!