Ponderings

Devotionals, prayer & insights from my Bible reading

Holding Tight (Prayer Devotional for the week of September 23, 2012)

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Luke 18 tells us about a man of distinguished position who approached Jesus and addressed him as “Good Teacher,” then asked what he needed to do to earn eternal life. Rather than answer his question outright, Jesus answered him with a question of his own: Why would he call him good? No one but God is truly good.

Jesus redirected the conversation and talked about obedience and adhering to God’s commands. The man stammered on about he’d kept all of the commandments, to his best recollection. But, Jesus was not only interested in the man’s ability to follow the rules; he wanted to deal with his heart issues.

After listening to the man justify his track record of good behavior, Jesus told him that he had only one thing left to do. I imagine at this point, the well-to-do official was feeling pretty good about himself. After all, he’d been a rule-follower all of his life, so what’s one more hoop to jump through? If this Jesus fellow wanted him to do one more task, how hard could it be?

But then, Jesus dropped the bombshell and told him to sell all of his possessions, give the money to the poor and become one of his followers. The Bible says that the man “became terribly sad. He was holding on tight to a lot of things and not about to let them go” (v. 23, MSG).

That is a very insightful statement. In this man’s case, what he was holding onto was what our family calls stuffy-stuff: possessions and wealth. Jesus knew that those things had a grip on the man’s heart that would prevent him from being fully devoted to him. I think it’s important to note that Jesus didn’t command everyone he met to sell all of their possessions. What he did do, however, was get to the heart of what was keeping them in sin. If their heart issue wasn’t about money, specifically, then he unabashedly pointed out their pride, promiscuity and other areas of greed and selfishness.

If we are going to find balance and rejuvenate our relationship with God, then we need to address the heart issues that keep us walled off from him. Some of the folks listening to Jesus’ conversation with the rich official asked if it’s so difficult, what chance does any wealthy person have of getting into heaven? “No chance at all,” Jesus said, “if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it” (v. 27, MSG).

He asks the same question of us. Will we continue focusing on all the good things we do, like the rich official did, or will we let God deal with the issues that are keeping us from being fully devoted to him?

Voyager and our own journey (Prayer Devotional for the week of September 16, 2012)

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Something remarkable is going to happen within the next year. In 1977, NASA launched two probes named Voyager 1 & 2 to explore our solar system, and – eventually – beyond it. Well, eventually has arrived. These two spacecraft are about to enter interstellar space.

Voyager 1 & 2, whose computers pack a miniscule 80 kilobytes of memory (80 kB is smaller than a typical digital photo), have provided scientists here on Earth with invaluable data about our outer planets. Even after all these years, the spacecraft still send daily information back to Earth.

Pause a moment and wrap your head around this: For the first time ever, something that human beings made will exit the solar system.

It is an extraordinary accomplishment, and something for which the scientists should be rightfully proud. And yet, we still know so little about our universe. Earth is just a speck of dust when compared to even our own Milky Way (where our Sun is one of roughly 400 billion stars), much less the farthest reaches of space.

Here at Crossroads, we are launching a sermon series today on finding balance in life. It seemed fitting to begin our prayer devotional for this topic with a candid reminder of just how insignificant we really are, in the grand scheme of the universe. So, when it seems like the whole world is coming to a stand-still because the drive-thru barista got your complicated latte order incorrect, a client yelled at you, your boss blamed you, only a few folks “liked” your weekly negative Monday morning Facebook post and you just don’t know how you can make it through another week, reflect on the psalmist’s words:

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,  what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3-4, NIV)

As much as we may wish that the world revolved around us, it simply doesn’t. We may feel like Voyager 1 & 2, whose outdated software pales in comparison to today’s technological gizmos, and yet look at what they are accomplishing! It may have taken 35 years, but these spacecraft are hurtling out of the Sun’s gravitational grasp. When it feels like your own journey is off-kilter, remember the One who will never, ever let you out of his grasp. “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit” (Psalm 147:4-5, NIV).