Scars are cool

[Pete] The week before Thanksgiving I had two doctors appointments. One for an ear nose and throat specialist and one with a dermatologist for a spot of concern over my right eyebrow. Charlotte had a doctor's appointment too.

Needless to say, we both got hit by the vampires: Charlotte had some blood drawn on her foot and I got the spot above my eyebrow removed for testing.

Our bodies are amazing gifts and tools. They really are so very plastic it seems. They repair themselves and with them we produce things.

A prevailing thought I had in the days shortly after Victoria gave birth to Charlotte (o by the way, Victoria and Charlotte do not prefer nicknames... their full names please): Our greatest commodity as humans is to be able to bring new people into God's creation. According to the Bible angelic beings cannot (or at least do not have the privilege to) reproduce living creatures after their own kind. We as humans do.

Also, angelic being long to see the salvation we as humans can enter into. When a third of the angelic beings fell in sin under the evil one's rebellion, the offer of forgiveness was not available for them after that decision. For humanity, God has been even more generous. He has provided a way of salvation after sin. Something angels long to catch a glimpse of (1 Peter 1:10-12). No wonder some angels must get jealous.

Have you ever heard someone call their daughter an "angel"? I have. I always want to shoot back... "you mean... sinner." Not to be mean, but in order that the truth of their condition is clear from the beginning. They are humans, not angels, and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

This actually leads to some greater thoughts that I've thought, thanks to the likes of Diogenes Allen's book Philosophy for Understanding Theology (I've linked to the most recent edition of his book but will be citing his 1985 edition that I own). Specifically, in his introduction chapter he writes about the generosity of God:

God's freedom in creation is the reason we view creation as an act of sheer generosity and also the reason God is unknowable in essence or being. ... God is the Creator and that the existence and order of the universe show that God is generous. Without being able to comprehend divine being, we know from the act of creation that God is generous, and we know something of the immensity of divine generosity from the nature of the world. That gift does not, however, exhaust the extent of God's generosity. We learn this from the second way God is related to us, namely through the call of the people of Israel to a specific mission and through the incarnation. In creation God gave the physical universe its nature, and to human beings God gave their kind of life. But with the acts of calling Israel and becoming incarnate for our sakes, we learn that God created us in order to have a life with God, indeed that we are ultimately to share the divine life, which is beyond our mode of existence. Divine generosity is thus greater than we could realize simply from God's being related to us as Creator. Only in seeing God as Redeemer, indeed as Redeemer in Christ do we realize the even greater depths of divine generosity.

However immense the generosity expressed by God as Creator and incarnate Redeemer, the inexhaustible source from which that generosity springs is beyond our comprehensions. ...God's actions never exhaust the divine nature, and we know God only as God acts or relates to us.

This brings me back to angels... not babies, but the actual angelic beings, also in God's created order, but without the ability to procreate. 1 Peter 1:10-12 is where I am getting the following thoughts. Considering that God's acts reveals to us God's great generosity it is interesting to consider it from the perspective of angels. Angels had a choice to fall away and follow Lucifer/Satan, or to remain loyal to their Creator God. Once the choice was made it was not given to the angelic beings to change their loyalties back to God. They understood God's generosity toward them as their Creator.

For human's, however, God's generosity in human procreation, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and in redemption are all a demonstration of God's generosity beyond what angels had seen before... "things angles long to get a glimpse of" (1 Peter 1:10-12). This is an amazing thing. But you know what? God is even more generous than that. To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.