Separation - Romans 8:31-39

As humans there are many kinds of hurt and pain we endure though out life, the obvious is often seen or experienced in the physical. Its hard to deny the experience of physical pain whether it be enduring chronic back pain or even one of the many cancers people experience and yet it is this pain which I find more bearable then most. For it is the kind of pain that others cannot see, the emotional hurt that I believe not only is more difficult to deal with but in many ways scars us more than all others.

Being separated from those we love and are in relationship with has to be the most difficult and gruesome pain I have ever felt in my life. In recent years this kind of pain has been very real to me and not knowing or having any understanding of how I can fix it makes it the more difficult. Relationships is what makes people into family and families into community. It really does lie at the heart of who we are as humans. And when we understand that this characteristic of being human is a reflection of how God has created us, we also know that being in relationship must also be at the heart of who God is.

God has never been or desired to be a distant being in which we have no connection or relationship as some people will often perceive. Many murals have been painted of a God who is in heaven with a heavy stick of correction ready and willing to punish his disobedient servants. And yet this in no way reflects the nature of our God whom from the beginning of time, even in the writings of Genesis, reflects his plans and desire for a way in which His creation might come back into perfect love and relationship with Him.

Throughout the old testament we find hundreds of prophecies relating to the coming of the Messiah, the one who we know as Christ Jesus. It is through this ministry of reconciliation of our Lord Jesus that we can once again come into God's loving arms and the amazing relationships that He desires for His creation. As Jesus said of himself "I am the way, the truth and the life.." John 14:6

In separation from those we truly love we get a glimpse of God's own heart towards His creation. Though He desires a loving and perfect relationship with them, He is often rejected and hated by the very ones He created and loves. Nothing it would seem can cause greater grief than to have those you love reject you and yet this is what mankind does every moment of the day. How can God go on loving and displaying His love for creation when there is so much hatred towards him? I guess this is what makes Him God and we just a mere shadow of our intended selves. So as Romans says

³¹ What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? ³² Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? ³³ Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. ³⁴ Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

³⁵ Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? ³⁶ (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) ³⁷ No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We can only pray for this same love to be displayed in our own lives!
God Bless you, God loves you...