How Many Days Till Easter? Innovation

I was driving to Toronto yesterday when I saw innovation in a new light.  

I passed trucks, cars, planes, bridges, buildings - tons of every day stuff.  Then I had this thought - everything we take for granted today was created by someone who at one point or another way out on a limb, often all by themselves.

If you were friends with the Wright brothers...how crazy would you think they were?  Flight...people have tried for centuries and failed.  I'd likely have told them to stop wasting their time and go back to building bicycles.  

At some point, a handful of people dedicated their lives to building an an engine and a horseless carriage because they thought life would be better without horse drawn carriages than with them. Their neighbours must have thought they were nuts, I'm sure.

And that's just stuff we use every day.

The best stuff in life is hard.  

2000 years ago Jesus did something no one else had ever done - He gave himself up as a perfect sacrifice for my sins and your sins.  God broke the stalemate between Himself and humanity when He made love the final Word.  He took the spitting, the lashes, the torture and the humiliation of the cross and loved us back so strongly that it still shakes us to our core today.  He went out on a limb and loved in the face of hate so great that anyone else would have caved and hated back.

Made me think that the innovation that love brings - to love when others hate - is such hard, but worthwhile work.  Others would tell you to spit back in their face.  To give in to the critics.  To penalize and lash out.  I have been so tempted to do this, and under such lesser hatred than Jesus faced. 

At times lately I've wondered whether love is worth it - whether it's worth the cost.  But the alternative - to treat people as their sins deserve - is so ungraceful it's disgraceful.  So we soldier on, loving...because we have a God who loves.

This week, you and I will be challenged to innovate with love.  To bring love where there is unloveliness. It can be hard.  Eventually someone will call you crazy.  You might think you are crazy.  But look at the impact Jesus had with His radical love.  The love I'm called to bring and you're called to bring. It's innovate, because it does what other people are not doing.

I want to innovate...bringing love where it doesn't belong.  How about you?