Does every blessing bring a curse with it?
Or, to put it in a non-religious terms, do you feel like you have to pay a price for every good thing that happens in your life? What causes this?
There was a time when I would lay on the porch behind our house and look up at the sky. I found it relaxing to daydream and watch the clouds go by. Every now and then I would see a plane flying overhead. I would imagine what it would be like to be on a plane again, going to far-off places. I said silent prayers, “Lord, I would like to travel.”
That prayer was granted. Within months I was on a plane to India. For several years I had the opportunity to visit many parts of the world and those experiences changed my life in a positive way.
However, all that came with a price. The price was high enough that I eventually needed to leave that position.
Have you had similar experiences? A relationship with someone you respected and admired, but then it fell apart? A stomach virus in the middle of a long-anticipated vacation? A new possession that’s making things really hard on your finances?
Why is this?
It just seems to be in the nature of things.
That, actually, is the problem – the nature of things.
Each of us is fallen and we live among fallen people, in a fallen world and universe. Everything we go after is going to carry that “fallenness” with it. No person, situation or circumstance is immune. Sin has touched it all.
But there is hope.
God loves us. Like all true lovers he wants us. What did it take for him to be with us? A price. Jesus paid that price. A life that had never known death, died. On Good Friday, he died.
Jesus paid the price – the ransom for our sin. He removed the curse, redeemed the fallenness, and restored goodness to all things.