42. Committed, Not Comfortable.

Been a while since I've posted. But here I am, and hopefully here you are too.

Do Not Worry (Matthew 6:25-34):

A few days ago I was catching up on some posts by Steve Flores and while responding to his post "Ask, Seek, Knock," I thought of one of the last verses of this passage of scripture (Matthew 6:33), and this is how I responded:

"I'm beginning to realize that Jesus isn't nearly as interested in our earthly concerns so much as he is with our Kingdom concerns. I think our flesh gets in the way of our Bible-reading sometimes and we force Jesus to tell us how he will make our lives super pleasurable and that, if we trust in him, nothing bad will ever happen to us and we'll be free from the troubles of this world. We kinda corner Jesus in to our narrow-minded, self-absorption. The truth of the matter is, though, that Jesus says focus on the Kingdom because what happens with the Kingdom is much more important than what happens with our ideal, planned-out lives. Jesus is saying that if we seek after him, there's a greater reward than pleasure in our lives. I think when he says, 'Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you,' he's saying, 'focus on the Kingdom (not yourself), and more than you can plan or grasp or conjure up in your earth-mind will be given to you - a greater reward.' [my paraphrase] He's saying let me out of this corner you've backed me into so I can show you what's up!"

Then today in my Bible as Lit. class we talked about the story of the woman at the well in John 4 and I especially liked the next scene when disciples rejoined Jesus. Here's what went down:

The disciples told Jesus he should eat (he'd been on the road for a while; nice guys, those disciples). Jesus said, profoundly, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then the disciples (clearly not the most fluent guys in spiritual metaphors) asked each other if someone else might have given him some food when they weren't paying attention. Dumb. Jesus replies to their oblivion by saying, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ..."

I love this. Jesus is saying that there's more to life than little "needs." Our "essentials" are probably not the same as God's essentials. Jesus is telling us to wake up and realize that he has food that we are oblivious to - Kingdom food. God wants us to seek Him whole-heartedly, abandoning concern for our personal needs in our own lives. When we do that, I believe Jesus is saying that, then, we will be satisfied; not necessarily with pleasant lives (food, clothes, shelter, and riches), but perhaps. I'm just not willing to say that a missionary that's suffered and lived in the slums of the world, is not receiving a picture-perfect life because they weren't seeking the Kingdom. In fact, that's exactly what they are doing to get themselves into such a messy situation. God is calling us to get ourselves into messy, dysfunctional, uncomfortable places, because living out salvation is hard and requires that kind of stuff. God wants us to be committed, not comfortable. And isn't that what we want from our followers?

I leave you just like that.... Tell me what you think (leave a comment - it's super easy).