Something To Ponder

My mother loved instant mashed potatoes. She loved the convenience it provided, the not having to do all the work of regular mashed potatoes. Also, in the mornings, she could not wait for the fresh pot of coffee to be made so she would heat up a cup from the night before (she drank it 24/7) while the new pot was brewing. That used to gross me out! I have to have fresh hot coffee. I’ll wait for the real deal. By the way, I do not like instant mashed potatoes either. I happen to think real mashed potatoes are worth the time and trouble.

I believe people have gotten into a mindset that says I want it now, I want it fast and I want it easy. I want it to be pain and trouble free. We don’t want to pass through times of troubled waters either. We are Christians, after all, we should be walking around in the ‘glow’, a walking billboard of happiness, and joy personified. We want life to be pain and trouble free, too. My question would be, “Why do we think we should have it better than Jesus?”

Dr. Russell Moore said, “The “normal” human life isn’t what is marketed to us by the lives we see projected on movie screens, or, frankly, by a lot of Christian sermons and praise songs. The normal human life is the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who sums up in himself everything it means to be human (Eph. 1:10). And the life of Christ presented to us in the Gospels is a life of joy, of fellowship, of celebration, but also of loneliness, of profound sadness, of lament, of grief, of anger, of suffering, all without sin.

As the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ, we don’t become giddy, or, much less, emotionally vacant. Instead, the Bible tells us we “groan” along with the persecuted creation around us (Rom. 8:23). We cry out with Jesus himself, experiencing with him often the agony of Gethsemane (Gal. 4:6; Mk. 14:36). And, paradoxically, along the way, we join Jesus in joy and peace (Gal. 5:22). A human emotional life is complicated, and a regenerated human emotional life is complicated too.”

No instant happiness, no pain-free walk through life. We cannot shut our eyes to the pain and hardships in the world around us or the starvation of babies in drought stricken countries or people being killed because they worship differently than those around them. And we certainly do not get to shut our eyes to our own situations and pretend everything is coming up roses. I for one, sometimes would prefer to pretend my life is better than it is, happier than I feel, and less complicated than I know it to be. I would like to project an image for the world to see that hides my pain and reality. Fact is that would make me a great pretender, a seeker of instant happiness, and not at all the Christian that follows in the footsteps of Jesus. Jesus felt the same heart wrenching emotions we feel today. I do not believe His message was to act as if nothing is wrong. It is not the lack of problems that differentiates a Christian from a non-believer but they way in which they walk them out.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we should go around with our bleeding hearts on our shoulders or beating people up with a bloody stump of despair. The key is, as Dr. Moore pointed out, in three little words…all without sin.

Christ felt life of joy without sin, celebration without sin, loneliness without sin, profound sadness without sin, lament and grief without sin, anger and suffering… all without sin. He felt the same emotions we feel today. He didn’t hide His anger in the Temple or grief over the death of His friend, or sadness in the conditions in Jerusalem. He felt it, lived it, and persevered through it. He did not pretend life was easy, instant or rosy. Why, then, do we expect that of ourselves and other Christians? Something to ponder…