We all have them and we allow them to drive the way we live our lives.
It once said by an unknown author, "That human beings need a reason to exist, to live." And hence, we spend half of our lives exploring half-baked ideas, personal interests and even skills we seem to excel at.
At some point of our life, we do find that one or two things that we are really good at and we are so excited, that we pump in all our time, energy, emotions and even resources to hone that skill. We hope to make much use of it before our time is up and we start to lose our capacity to improve.
But most of the times, we tend to give up easily. When we find that we no longer know how more to improve, when we find someone else who has already done it better than us, when we find something else that we'd like to try and we simply move on.
Just as quickly as we had found the passion and the drive, it slips out of us and we find ourselves dry and empty, searching for the next project that will bring us that same high and euphoria of finding WHO WE ARE.
Even as Christians, we sometimes come before God on our knees, begging Him, "Please Lord, grant me my greatest wish. Help me to find something that I enjoy, something that I'm really good at. And once I've found that, could you help me make that my career, my providence, my life."
A friend of mine found a really good material and she photocopied and excerpt for me. It held a passage from the Gospel of Mark 2:1-5.
This is the account of the paralytic man whose friends brought to Jesus in hope of him being healed and it reads:
A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to JEsus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
Isn't it weird, that here there was a man who was paralyzed from head to toe in need of healing and Jesus was all like, "I forgive you." It just didn't make sense on a few levels.
One. Did Jesus misinterpret what the friends and the paralytic was looking for? These brave and loyal friends dug a hole in the roof, lowered a mat with their paralyzed friend down to the feet of Jesus so that he'd be able to walk again, to play soccer with them and to just be normal again. Why did Jesus not get it?
Second. What did the paralyzed man need forgiveness for? There was no previous accounts of the paralytic having met Jesus and doing any wrong to him, so what was up with that?
Third. The teachers of the law were outraged! Who was this Jesus person to say he forgave sins? For they (the teachers) knew that only God could forgive sins!
Right after Jesus had made that statement, he actually presents us the answer, a life-gripping truth from verses 8 - 12 which reads:
Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven," or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins..." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." HE got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
We know and the paralytic knows, that his deepest wish is to be healed and to be able to walk again. That if he would just be able to walk again, he would never be unhappy again! He would never complain again for the rest of his life and he'd be eternally satisfied.
But Jesus knew better, that such contentment would never last. Because the discontentment of the human heart goes way deeper than any experience this world could ever offer to quench. Jesus knows, that the heart of the problem and the problem of the heart, is sin that enslaves us and keeps us forever thirsty and hungering for more.
You see, Jesus could have easily and simply healed the man and let him be on his way. But that was not Jesus' desire, that was not the reason for which he had come to this earth, to just simply be a genie who grants wishes. He came, to be a Savior - one who would free his people from sin and to bring them into an everlasting relationship with himself. He came, to free us from our endless hungering and thirst for the things of this earth, that we may find total satisfaction and fulfillment in Him.
For the deepest need of human beings, is to be forgiven. Forgiven for our ignorance to God, for our disobedience and our insistant reluctantance to acknowledge Him for who He is - The Creator of all things and the One who would one day return to judge for the way we have lived our lives. The only One who can save and the only one who can redeem His people that we might be acceptable in His sight.
And in order for that to happen, this Savior had to die. For there is a penalty for this sin - of not regarding God for who He is and living in total defiance of that truth. And the penalty is heavy because God is no ordinary human being and as the Righteous Judge, He will not allow such treason to go unpunished, "for the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23a
But God proved His love for us in this, "...while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
And this then completes the full and beautiful picture of God's saving plan for man in the whole verse of Romans 6:23 which reads, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The question we have to ask ourselves is, have we come to know this Jesus personally?
Have we come to grasp with the truth that we are in need of saving from ourselves, from our insatious hunger for self-fulfillment?
Have we come to see what it really means to give our dreams, our brokenness and our lives to our Lord, that He may lead us in the way of eternal life so that we may no longer be stumbling around trying to find our way in this life?
I pray for us all, that we come to contend with this great truth that God has given to us in His word.
"And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"
Mark 8:34 - 36
