thank YOU.

A couple years ago around Easter I bought this CD called “The Wonderful Cross” that has hymns and contemporary worship songs on Calvary. Today, from the CD, I was listening to a rendition of the worship song “Above All” by Rebecca St. James (an awesome, exemplary woman of God and tireless, passionate advocate of purity who just got engaged in January, btw:)). A few lines in the chorus say,

Crucified, laid behind a stone
You lived to die, rejected and alone
Like a rose, trampled on the ground
You took the fall, and thought of me
Above all

At the end of the song Rebecca ad libs, “Thank you for thinking of me.”

Listening today I was more struck by the ad lib than I have been in recent memory. I thought it an understatement— but a wonderful one.

“Thank you for thinking of me” is the kind of thing we usually say in response to someone's act that took a measure of effort - such as getting us a little gift. It’s not often associated with something as big as the God of the Universe sending His only Son as a payment for all my sin – so I can have life forever. That Act of sacrifice – love – is so beyond thoughtful that the adjective doesn’t do it justice. At least in the chorus of "Above All" the statement “and thought of me” is preceded by the words, “You took the fall” – which highlights a little better how grand His death is.

But that also was the beauty of the ad lib "Thank you for thinking of me” –it’s another reminder that, to Our Creator, a thought is more than just something that pops into His head, resulting in merely a neat little token of appreciation. A thought to Him is something big, something huge, something that reaches humanity – an entire world. His Word highlights that His thoughts – including the ones for us, are so beyond what we can imagine. Isaiah 55: 8-9 says,

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Jeremiah 29:11 also says this about the thoughts God has for us:

11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

The Greatest Future believers in Christ have is eternity with Him, a reality present only because of The Cross – the result of a thought that had our perilous condition in mind:

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 6-8.

I love Good Friday for the special opportunity to reflect on the agony that Christ suffered so that we can live far more abundantly. Because of The Cross, I can love more, give more, serve more – be more than I could ever even think of being on my own.

I’m not sure how much sense these thoughts have made, I’m putting them down after a long day of many relections, but it’s what has meant the most to me during this year's celebration of a Good, Good day.

Thank you for The Cross, My Friend.