There's this story in the bible where the Disciples are on the move. It's nothing special, they were a traveling ministry, so being on the move wasn't an especially unique aspect of their lives and this particular night, they happened to be out on a lake, in a boat, trying to save some part of the night by cutting across the lake before continuing on their journeys on the other side. Before they knew it a storm came up right in the middle of their crossing. The storm had to be pretty rough to have sent these guys, a good number of them fisherman who had sailed quite a bit before (one might imagine), into a panic. They tried desperately to keep the boat afloat, pulling out bucket after bucket of water and trying desperately to save the sail and the mast of this ship that probably belonged to one of them.
It was a crazy, crazy night for them, but the most un-believable thing to these guys wasn't the fact that they were in a storm, or even that in their minds the boat was sinking. The most un-believable thing about this particular trip was their teacher, the man that they chose to follow, the one who had all of these mystical abilities and claimed to be the Meschiach, the messiah, the true Son of God.
He was asleep in the back of the boat.
Sleeping right through the storm, probably tired after a long day of teaching and walking, enjoying a nap before they had to dock and get off.
But the disciples were not happy, they were not happy at all... they run over to Jesus and push him awake and start to scream at him, amazed at his lack of concern: “DON'T YOU CARE IF WE DROWN?”
Jesus stand up, goes to the front of the boat, sticks out his hand and says to the wind and the waves “SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!” and they did.
And the disciples huddle in the front of the boat, and look over at him saying
“who is this?”
as much as I don't want to, I can sympathize a lot with these guys yelling. For some reason, as soon as something starts to go wrong, I start to go crazy. I can look good on the outside for a while, but on the inside I'm having a panic attack. I find myself in that situation a lot, and almost always end up thinking to myself “ok God... where the heck are ya, cause this is ridiculous and everything is falling apart”.
Over the past few days, I have been thinking a lot about the wholeness of the depravity of us, as people. The gravity of our hopeless state, and how easy it really is to feel totally and utterly hopeless.
There is this thought that is going around that says God is great, and his people are the chosen ones so we must walk with upright heads, broad shoulders and eyes lifted up to the sky, looking for God in the clouds above the city. I have been shoved into this culture of “THE MIGHTY CHRISTIAN” who can smell and breathe holiness, who's greatest strength is his words and his ability to shape them into thoughts that sting the listener but don't reach his soul. Who cares about people so they will see him caring, and who loves people so those who he shows love will know that he is someone who they can rely on.
Well, My head is often far too big and heavy with depression to be held upright most of the time, my shoulders are rounded and tired, while my eyes are so often looking straight at the ground that I forget to look up. I have trouble breathing deeply due to the surgeries that I have had, and I often cannot get a single sentence out of my mouth without having to go back and correct some dumb mistake I have made. If that is what being a good christian is, I must have something terribly wrong with me.
Too often do I see in myself and in other people around me the characteristics of death and decay that comes from self-promotion and self-idolatry, putting our own self and our agenda's in the place of God's reign and rule in our life. The term “whited sepulcher” is far to authentic a description of our lives than I would like to admit sometimes.
Along my travels, I have heard os manny people come to bleieve that the only thing God wants out of us is for us to be “good people”, to live respectfully and to honor our elders and to turn the other way when we see something wrong and to always, ALWAYS have a smile on our faces.
These people are those who are so quick to be the one telling others that they need to step it up, but they tend to leave the most un-touchable pieces of their heart out of the realm of their lecturing. They are good at looking ok, kept together, like they have everything handled. A one man-fully equipped band, that can play anything perfectly... for Jesus, of course.
When I look a these people, I tend to feel like a loser. I automatically see them and want to be like them, want to have it all together because thats what Jesus would wants, right?
Something inside of me comes up and says “see... you need to be better, see how good they look, how respectful they are... and now what are you? A failure... why do you even bother?”.
And there it is... that simple, bone-chilling question inside of me that can turn even my greatest days into days of depression and hopelessness. When all I see around me are things I have done wrong it becomes very hard to see the truth in it all.
So why do I bother? Why do I bother with this whole “christian” thing? Because the Jesus of the new testament, the Jesus that sits and the right hand of The Father is not sitting there holding you at arms length, saying “what a terrible thing you just did! How could you even think about doing something like that? You call yourself a christian? why do you even bother?”. no... Jesus Christ is one who eats with prostitutes, enjoys the company of those society deems “untouchable”, He is a God who says to you “are you tired? Burnt out? Come and walk with me... learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”.
See, as long as we keep thinking like that, we will never be comfortable being ourselves around Him, we will ever be able to look at the Face of Jesus and not feel shame, because we automatically place shame on ourselves. We automatically take ourselves out of the running of being a disciple because we screwed up.
Mark Moore, a Professor at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, MO, once said that our greatest competition for the love of Jesus isn't the other disciples that we try to impress, nor is it the people at our church who look down on us because of our faults. Our greatest competition for the love of Jesus is ourself, its what we say about ourself: “I can't serve Jesus! Not after what i've done, not after who I am!” All the while Jesus is saying to us “this is ME! Not the Pharisees, not judgmental people in your church, this is me.”
I think that we get so wrapped up in our own inadequacies that we forget that the God we serve is far greater than what we try to be... that He is the God unlike any other god... one who says to his people “you don't owe anything. I'm paying the price for you. You need not feel any shame anymore.
This is me.”© 2008 Joshua Quale
