 Strategy
Do you like puzzles? My grandmother loved puzzles! She would sit at the table in the kitchen putting together puzzles with thousands of pieces. If you enjoy puzzles you have probably figured out certain strategies to help you identify which pieces fit into which places. Usually, these practices utilize the final product (the picture on the box) to help make sense of all the pieces. If you do not enjoy puzzles you may be focusing on the individual piece to the exclusion of the whole picture. Trees & Forests In our modern western world our lives can become like one of these very large puzzles. At times it can become hard to be sure that we even have all the pieces. We become managers trying to juggle many more responsibilities and opportunities than ever before. Interestingly, as modernity seeks to help us to organize our lives and control our environments, the sheer amount of information, decisions, and systems can be staggering. Compartmentalization is an ability that can be both a blessing and a curse. This means that even though being able to categorize the various relationships, activities, responsibilities, ambitions, and goals in our lives may help us to be more efficient, we may lose the meaning that makes all these things significant. Jesus said “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” (Mark 8:36) In the immediately preceding verse He makes a cryptic statement about the one who would save his life actually losing his life and the one who would lose his life saving it. There is a way for us to laser focus our lives to the point that we forfeit the very life or future that we thought that we were building. The disciples are thoroughly confused at this point. They (through their always ready spokesman, Peter) had just confessed that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. But now, Jesus is explaining that what was coming was suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection. For the disciples these did not seem like the pieces that could come together to display the picture of the glorious Kingdom of God. However the Lord is describing for them what their discipleship (and ours) will necessarily look like. Every disciple of Jesus needs to realize that at many points in the journey that is our life as believers, the path of obedience is going to look too hard and the path of disobedience is going to seem like the better way. IT’S A TRAP! But remember Jesus told His disciples and us that the easy way is the wrong way! (Matthew 7:13-14) Conclusion Because this is the case, we need to trust the one who knows what the final result is supposed to look like to help us fit together the pieces in the middle. It would probably serve most of us well to consider what God has revealed about our eternal future and His glorious kingdom. No amount of suffering or pain or disgrace now can ever compare with the goodness, grace and glory of God that awaits us in His presence and in His kingdom! No one wants to spend hours putting together the puzzles only to discover that a few key pieces were never included in the first place. In the same way we should not live our lives just assuming that things will work out. Instead as genuine disciples, we must be resting in His grace, relying on the goodness of His plan, and relentlessly pursuing His glory in all things!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |