My family and I like to watch the TV show "Monk"; a story about a OCD detective who has extraordinary perception skills. It is the shows last season and last night was part 1 of the finale. Monk has been poisoned and is going to die in 2-3 days unless and anecdote can be found. One of the characters is commenting on Monk's life - "I used to think that Monk was less than human; he was missing something. I now understand that he saw a whole lot more than we did; he was fully human." (I can't remember the exact words, but it went something like that.)

I have been thinking about how there are quite a few things that are right below my emotional surface right now. I find myself emotional about my mom, marriages that are in shambles, the future relationship of my kids with God, the friends that I am praying find God, young girls who are cutting themselves to get attention; things like that. I find myself crying out to God for these situations. I see and feel the pain that sin has caused in these relationships. This is not the way God designed it to be - full of pain and brokenness.

I believe that the reason last night's episode of Monk set my mind going was his extra ordinary perception and the realization of one of his co-workers that this caused him pain. I looked at the amount of pain that I feel as I look at the sin racked situations around me and realized that it was puny compared to what God must feel every moment of every day; in its completeness and fullness. I can run and hide from it; I don't think of it all the time. He cannot hide from it; He experiences it in it fullness all the time.

I probably have written about this before. However, understanding this once again causes me to worship Him, causes me to understand how gracious He is toward me and helps me understand what Jesus went through in the Garden of Gethsemane when He was facing the weight of the sin of the world on Him. He did that for me; He did something that I could never do; look into the face of evil and defeat it.

Keep your eyes open today and see the effects of sin around you. I don't ask this so that you can be depressed; I ask this so that you can place your hope FULLY in the one who conquered sin and will worship Him more fully.