Unsatisfied By Average

The Musings of a Stubborn Believer

Category: Jesus

Sympathy with Humanity

I wasn’t complaining. Though it sounds a bit like it now…
On a peninsula of rock jutting like a castle between a gorge and a vale I stood, breathless from the scramble. Hands in my pockets and with eager step, if heavy heart.

Perhaps a few will understand when I say I carry on my heart at any given time a thousand reasons to laugh, and a thousand reasons to weep. Most all of them with first and last names.
Such is the cost of loving humanity, I suppose.

Anyway, this post isn’t about me.

I’d just gained the crest, just finished a brief review comparing the power at my disposal with my far-too-often dismal performance, just realized afresh how deep mercy reaches, and

It’s not fair, You know? I deserve the lot of the criminal, but here I stand in converse with The Infinite, while people I love slowly die in the clutches of fear….

Can you see why happiness means nothing to me when it’s mine alone?

…So, it’s all or nothing.

Either I am to be completely at Your disposal to help the weak, comfort the wounded, and actually lift, and heal, and effect a lasting change, or…

Or, I want out right. now. 

Because it hurts too much to be in sympathy with humanity.

Ever have you been in that place or time when suddenly every tree in the wood seemed to drop its jaw and gape? and you wonder:

what did I do. What did I just say?

The only answer is this electric silence.

I glance one way and the other. Wait.

He never says. But suddenly it’s as if every snowflake has recovered from shock and found a voice.

He would know.

He would know just exactly how much it hurts to be in sympathy with humanity. And He chose it, over the alternative, not because there was no alternative. For Him, there’s no “out.”

For Him, there’s no wanting out.

“For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”  Hebrews 4:15 

The Key


Once again the truth is pressed home hard on my consciousness.

I shuffle. As if through stacks of mental paperwork on the desk of my mind, searching for the keys. Keys apparently hidden somewhere in the fine print ten thousand words long?

No, not there. The key is here.

Here in plain sight. Written in plain english.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

The road, the destination, and the journey on that road, to that destination.

Everything.

There you have it.
The key lies in Jesus being everything.

Believing is Everything?

Minnows flee the froth while they tumble out of the boats and splash ashore, this exuberant rabble.
They’ve been looking for the miracle worker that baked 25,000 barley loaves (not including what wife and kids ate) without an oven yesterday, and they’ve just found Him.

He doesn’t answer their first question at all, rather gently reminds them what alone is really worth pursuing.

“Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you.”

(John 6:27 KJV)

Whether or not they actually understand what He’s saying, they are plainly intrigued. So they ask another question. The answer to which has me positively intrigued…

“Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe…”

(John 6:28-29 KJV emphasis added)

Belief changes everything.

Because if Christ really came, then God is really good, and self-love is really a lie, and sin is really a destroyer, and who wants to die anyway?

I have some news for you.
Christ came. (Matchless condescension.)
And He comes again, every time a dark heart opens its door. (Again, matchless condescension.)
What more proof do we need of His benevolence?

And if He is benevolent, then where’s the controversy?

Believing is everything.

We only ever hesitate to serve a God whose character we question.

Jesus Knows

I wonder if you, like me, have ever stood in the doorway of the tabernacle* and felt like you were totally out of place there…

–  –  –  –
I stand on the threshold. This is God’s home. And it’s a place that feels as though it has been at times more familiar to me than it is at this moment. 
His eyes hold only love. 
My head is bowed though, because my mind cradles memories fresh of petty wanderings I’d like to forget.
“Welcome home.”
“Thank You, Sir.
       
But— [with trembling, and wonder, and a bit of incredulity, and still a bowed head] 
Does Your Lordship know what it feels like to be a betrayer and a murderer?”
I know. The inane questions I ask sometimes.
He just looks at me, lets me stand there a minute. And His face is kind, and grave, and silent. But suddenly His Spirit leads me back to truth 2,000 years old. I hear, I remember. I look up at His face. 
“Yes, actually… I died carrying the sins of Judas too.”

Oh. That’s right. (and so horribly wrong.)

You Who knew no sin, accepted the sin of the betrayer. 
And it killed You, so I could live.

And this is why you can welcome me home.
Let me never hesitate.
Jesus knows. 
*metaphorically speaking, you understand.