May I Get Down Now?
Was this the greatest temptation of Christ? My friend, Bob, thinks so. He tells me this story over lunch, after a long morning of work on his favorite volunteer projects. At 70-something he works as hard at giving back as he did at his first vocation.
He says the work of the cross must have been so hard, the isolation so great, that it took all of Jesus' divine will not to get down. Not to walk away from it all, walk away from us. Certainly He had the right, the sinless, righteous right to leave us in our misery. Certainly we deserve it, stubbornly persisting in the things that bring us to our knees.
Bob tells me that so many of his friends have chosen to get down off of their cross. “They worked so hard all of their lives,” he says. “They tell me they deserve to take it easy. The don't want to be bothered.”
Why do we think this way? That there's a point in our lives when we can close up shop and stop thinking about the world? I catch myself daydreaming about the day I can do whatever I want. But are days full of not being bothered what I really want?
"Take it easy?" Perish the thought! I can't imagine life without goals and things to accomplish. My in-laws spend their days riding around in a motor home between Wisconsin and Texas. He fishes, she putters around with "crafts," if you can call them that. They have no schedules, no obligations, and no reason to get up in the morning. No life, if you ask me...I got my bachelors's and master's degrees after I raised my kids, I'm teaching something I love, mostly for pay but sometimes not, and I intend to spend the rest of my days doing just that! Retire??? Why??? God didn't put me on this earth to take up space. He could have accomplished that with a rock.
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We are strange creatures that create confusion and complexity when the way and answers are clearly before us. Take leadership for example. We are programmed to seek and want a leader and yet we have an opposing internal conflict with leadership. We want to be led providing we can do what we want and not be disturbed. So we seek the perfect leader who does not bother us but takes care of all the other dim witted people who obviously need to be led, corrected and changed.
Every nation, province, state, county, city, business organization, non-profit, charity, volunteer group and family all have leaders and similar organizations. Why? There is someone on top who is the designated leader, president, CEO, king, director, governor, mayor, etc. However, they all fall short because they do not do exactly what we want. And we know best what to do. If something works, we did it or it is our idea. If it does not work, the leader is incompetent. So we fight, quarrel, criticize and create conflict.
We are programmed to seek and be under God, so why not do so? The end game is already decided and sealed.
There is only one true Leader and if we followed that Leader, how differently we would think and act. We would also eliminate a lot of wasted time and effort pursuing folly.
So why don't I really change? How about you?
DZ
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