Defends.

May is my favorite.

~~~
I have played piano for a long time, some of you may know.
And while I don't do it nearly as often as I should, or not by any stretch of the imagination nearly as often as I used to---well----actually----that's exactly the problem.
So then the other day when a situation happened that made me feel like a terrible human being and subsequently had me feeling a little overwhelmed, as I sat down to play the piano (Claude Debussy to be exact) to try to figure things out, to my chagrin it didn't solve any problems.
No.
Rather, I was just made very aware of how I don't play piano all that well anymore. And I don't do Debussy justice anymore.
Because, like I said, I don't play often.
And all of the sudden all that skill, all those 13 some plus years of weekly lessons, all those hours and hours practicing for all of those competitions mean virtually nothing and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.

Yes, I realize that is not entirely true.
But that's how it feels.
It feels like my skills are terribly ruined.

Since I was then in really no mood to be at the piano (because remember, I was going there for some semblance of comfort, not to be reminded of my own startling inabilities I am all too familiar with), I went and continued in my devotions, which that day found me in a place I more often than not am not in: the New Testament.
But for whatever reason I was in I John. A good little book, I have known this for years, but admittedly it's not one I frequent.
And since I can't give you the book's outline from memory, I was walking through it's sentences and phrases and truths rather slowly that morning, wanting to grasp what maybe I have missed before or taken for granted.

Isn't the Holy Spirit really good? Making it so that I can be reading a book I have read numerous times and all of the sudden I can see it differently? All of the sudden the Holy Spirit connects His words to my current life.
What a good God.

Because there in I John is this little bitty verse that says, "But if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (I John 2:1b)

As I sat there, struck with those words, all I could think was, "But I don't think I am much that's worth defending." After all, hadn't I just had a morning of feeling like a terrible person and hadn't I been made aware that I am squandering years and years of practice and honing of skill, and wasn't I even more acutely aware of a less than perky attitude that was then residing in my heart?

So what, I wondered, could really be worth defending? Why does he, this great God who cares enough to speak directly to me, want to defend me? Of all people? Surely there are better candidates.

Francis Schaeffer refers to human beings as "Glorious Ruins." Created in the image of God, we are more glorious than we could ever imagine. Yet, having fallen, we are more ruined than we might ever comprehend.

Kind of like my piano playing skills these days, I thought.
Glorious Ruins.

Listen, Claude Debussy is up there with the best of them; his works are masterpieces. They deserve someone to do them justice.
Not someone like me with ruined fingers.

But that's when it hit me. That's why he defends me. Because I am the ruined one. I am his gloriously {ruined} masterpiece (Eph 2:10) and he, like any artist who would still defend his vandalized work of art, making his correct claim that he can fix it, restore it, put it back to the way it was supposed to be, defends me before the Holy Father

Whoa.
He thinks I am worth defending.
He, the Righteous One.
Me, the Ruined One.
And he looks at me as his masterpiece that has only been played by ruined fingers and says, "I can make that ruin glorious again, but let me play the tune; I know what her life is supposed to sound like."
See Wolfies, that's why he defends us. He saw us before we were ruined. And he can see how we will be restored. He thinks you are worth restoring.
He thinks you are worth defending.
So he does.