Inches That Changed Everything
Recent events have left me, like many of you, heartbroken and pondering where we are in our society.
I was thinking about how in many ways, life comes down to inches, minutes, or even fractions of seconds. A bullet can merely graze the flesh, or penetrate the tissue of life- inches. In a car accident, sometimes the difference of inches can be the difference in life or death. For an elite athlete, a fraction of a second is the difference between Olympic Gold, breaking a world record, or dashed dreams.
And at the risk of sounding crude, even at the beginning of life itself, how far for sperm to travel to meet egg? Only inches.
Life can change in just a few minutes, or even seconds: a marriage, a birth, a death, a win, a loss.
And on the cross – how long were the nails? By most accounts, five to seven inches.
Five to seven inches of iron spikes.
Those five to seven inches of iron that pierced hands and feet, holding Jesus to the cross, brought death to Him, but life to us. His moments of agony became our healing. With His death and resurrection, everything changed. Hope was reborn. Eternal life promised and secured.
Some things we don’t understand, and may never understand, this side of Heaven. But we need to be reminded that the One who holds the seconds, minutes, and inches in His Hands is Lord of All. We can trust in His Sovereignty, knowing that we won’t live one moment longer, or one moment less, than He has planned for us.
Psalm 139:16
“Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.”
Even today, that’s the Good News.
Life By The Way 