An Excessive Expense

I was so bummed yesterday morning. The alarm went off and I leapt from bed to hit the ‘snooze’ button a few times to give myself an extra half hour sleep. I missed and hit the ‘off’ button instead, meaning that if I had gone back to bed, I would never have gotten up. I was bummed, you see.

So, I went to the living room to have my quiet time, which, had I successfully hit the ‘snooze’ button, I would have missed.

But, bummer, I’m reading in Numbers, and the chapters in my reading were about a plethora of sacrifices. Nothing redemptive or encouraging here, by any means. I was reading with a critical mind and heart. All of these sacrifices were an excessive expense. Exorbitantly wasteful. Hundreds of cattle and sheep, for what? I could not fathom the bloody wastefulness.

And then it hit me: if it was excessive and exorbitant to slaughter some cattle for my sin, how excessively exorbitant was it to slaughter the Son of God for the same? But that is what it took, and the Father was not unwilling to pay that price. And I don’t think he looks at me, in my sloth and rebellion, and says, “That was an excessive expense.” No. He determined to save me knowing who I am and what I do. He paid the price of his Son for this rotten apple of a man. Wow.

Suddenly, I was not so bummed.