That's why.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

I still haven't seen all of that movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," but it stuck with me enough that it was what I remembered while I looked through the past eight years of my pictures on Facebook. It's like a time capsule in plain sight, holding memories, friendships, feelings, and even dreams from back then. I like to do that every once in a while, just look back. It's usually embarrassing, but it reminds me God has a plan when I think of how far I have come and how far I still have to go. Whoever thought I would have gone to Lehigh University and been an RA? That I would have acted in high school? That I would have changed so much and in some ways not have changed at all? I still can't believe a lot of that, and I still can't believe I'm in Africa, and it's Holy Week. I did a lot of reflecting on my life, my mistakes, and my need for a Savior today.

That horrid question "why" used to be the motivator for my life, so much so that I was told by my fourth grade elementary school teacher that I would never be able to attend the United States Naval Academy. She reminded my mother that midshipmen need to follow orders, and if I was asked to make my bed so tightly that a quarter could bounce off the sheets, I would ask "why?" and be punished. Now whether such a condition at the Academy is true or not, I don't know. Perhaps someone who has been there and done that will vindicate my beloved teacher. That being said, "why" made me look askance at everything I did, said, and thought. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the enjoyment of life, for actually living.

Somewhere, and I can point to those wheres, God gave me a little nudge out of the door, like Gandalf said he gave to Bilbo in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Actually, He gave me a lot of little nudges. Change scared me pretty badly, because it meant something new, something hard, starting over, finding new friends, learning new ways of doing things-newness. As I sit and reflect while writing this, I realize I had been fighting God the whole time. Sometimes it was overt, sometimes it was subtle, and I feel bad looking back on those times when I did it without realizing it. The worrying, the stressing, the agonizing over picking the "right" words, the "right" decisions. If what is "right" becomes a point of contention between you and yourself, it's good to take a step back and get the second opinion that should have been first in God's Word.

Somewhere, I decided to stop sweating the little stuff. Somewhere, I was emboldened by the Holy Spirit to start pushing the big stuff-to dare to do the things that I didn't think I could do, to explore and grow in my faith, to take chances, to learn to live without fear. As stated by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. in his book "P.S. I Love You" but commonly misattributed to Mark Twain, I began to "throw off the bowlines" and "sail away from the safe harbor." When I started doing that, I found that "why" wasn't the all-important guiding point. "Because" took its place as justification, and if I ever needed to shut down a "why," I could take it to God in prayer and find it in the Word.

God gave me the best "because" of all. Perhaps you are familiar with it, as it's quite well-known. Most of us know it by heart, and I unfortunately thought it was overused when I was younger, perhaps from memory verses in Sunday School. I want to come back to that "because" in a minute.

In the meantime, it's good to reflect back on a life because it reminds you who you are, who you really are. To step outside of your comfort zone, to examine your robes washed clean and white, washed daily. God says through the prophet Isaiah "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." (Isaiah 1:16-17) Now, I don't know about you, but I know I can't remove the evil of my deeds from before God's eyes. I was born a sinful being into a fallen world, cursed before my time. This week, though, this Holy Week, the holiest of all weeks, sets the record straight. A man, a real, living, breathing, human being, comprised both fully of God and fully of man in ways that I cannot and will not ever truly understand, had to die for me and you. I mean, He didn't need to die. He could have chosen not to. And why wouldn't He? He died in a hard way, in a mean way, no peaceful drifting away in sleep or even quickly, being taken by surprise violence. No, He died on the cross because He chose to, because the only action that would amend our filthy records was the cleansing blood of a man who made the really right decisions, a life beyond mortal comparison and mortal comprehension, impossible for humanity. Only a man who could die, and only God who gets all things right, who makes all things new, who is perfect, could fulfill our transgressions.

The apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans thus: "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)

"Weak." "Ungodly." Those are strong words. This a strong time of the church year when we are reminded of the breadth and depth of our iniquities. A deed of love stronger than our original sin, the wrongs brought into the world at its inception by Adam, was performed to erase them. Just like that. The burden taken from our shoulders to Christ's. All sin that was committed, is committed, and will be committed was taken by Him, as by a father who sees his child carrying a box too big for him. Perhaps the child wants to prove himself to his father, and struggles to trudge ahead on his own, seeking parental acknowledgement. Perhaps the child carries something in the box that he does not want his father to see, only too like a child to forget that his father is taller than he and sees everything contained in that box. Maybe even the child does not want to loosen his grip on that box because it is "his" box, and he knows its contents with both a revulsion and a sense of familiarity. To release it to his father would surely be doom, that others might know his faults and weaknesses.

I want to come back to my best "because," though. "Why, why have you made me wait this long," you might ask? I really believe it is the best "because" not because it's mine, but because it was given to me by the best.

Jesus told Nicodemus "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:16-17)

That's why. It's really so good, it's the "because" to end all questions. As the apostle John tells us in Revelation, Christ says "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Revelation 22:12-13) Christ finished our sins started by Adam at the Creation, and He has begun our new lives in Him as the final answer to all questions and uncertainty. He is the promised and awaited Savior foretold by God's prophets and necessitated by our sinful human nature. Friday is the day we fulfill our Lenten journeys and meditations in His death, and await His joyous resurrection and victory over death for all of us.

It is a good time to think about our boxes. Do we still clutch them? If so, why? Why, when we have a Father who wants more than anything for us to relinquish them to Him so that He can put them far behind us? Why, when He wants to guide us ahead in His peace and on His paths of "steadfast love and faithfulness?" (Philippians 4:7, Psalm 25:4, 10) Why carry our own boxes of unrighteousness-filled sin when we could instead walk with Christ? Why let "sin reign in our mortal bodies" and be ruled by law when we can be governed by grace, as Paul says? (Romans 6:12-14) Why, when we could listen to Christ when He tells us "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light"? (Matthew 11:28-30)

During this Holy Week, I ask myself why indeed would I hold on to such a thing as my box, and give thanks that I do not have to.