PUSHING PAST THE CROSS

2 Kings 1:1-2:25; Acts 13:42-14:7; Psalm 139:1-24; Proverbs 17:19-21

“But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, ‘Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?”'”

“Some of the Jews, however, spurned God’s message and poisoned the minds of the Gentiles against Paul and Barnabas.”

“You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!”

Of all our sins that hurt the heart of God, it is probable the most painful to Him is our rejection of His Word of hope. When we seek help from lesser gods – be they called job, spouse, money, success or whatever – we necessarily jilt the One from whom all blessings flow. We probably don’t think of things in quite that way, or we would not do it. But the plain truth is that looking to anything or anyone to satisfy our needs ahead of the Lord is unfair not just to God but to the things or people we ask to take His place of preeminence in our lives. When we refuse to allow our Creator to guide us and our actions and desires, we place an impossible burden on others to succeed where they really are incapable of doing so.

One of the saddest things I’ve seen through 25 years of raising my own kids are parents who choose not to live directly with the Spirit but instead try to live vicariously through their children. I remember more than one Little League Dad dressing down his son after a particularly disappointing game or play. These men force standards on their boys the youngsters cannot begin to even understand, let alone achieve. Faced with their fathers’ unreasonable passion for personal, if derivative (that’s my boy!), recognition, lots of young men either give up or burn out completely on everything from athletics to social events and academics. This usually results in even more pressure on the kids to perform, often at times, like adolescence, when that is the last thing they need. Worse, the kids see this as a conditional love (if they think of it as love at all) very much at odds with how Jesus directs us to love our children. Even more important, it can skew the child’s perspective of God and even alienate them from the very idea of Him as their heavenly Father.

I still remember that summer shortly after my seventeenth birthday when I was chosen to play on a Colt League select team, and we made regional playoffs. I was in center field. Our team was up one run, and the opposition had men on first and second with one out in the bottom of the ninth. A weak pop fly was hit to me. It was a play I had made hundreds of times, but not this time. The ball hit the heel of my glove and skittered to the ground, and the runners were off. By the time the dust cleared, there were men on first and third, and the game was tied. We were still alive! My chance at redemption came the very next play – another weak popup with the runner at third tagging up to score after the catch. It was the perfect chance for a double play. The runner’s obvious strategy actually came as a pleasant surprise; the ball was far too shallow for him to have any reasonable chance of scoring. He was a sitting duck at the plate… until I buried the throw into the back of the pitcher’s mound. The ball rolled harmlessly toward the plate well behind the winning run.

I honestly don’t recall much that happened after that, except the horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that lasted for days. The only other thing I do remember is the sight of my father rising disgustedly off the bleachers before the final play was even over and getting into his car, leaving me to find my own way home. I learned that day that while many things can be forgiven, very few things can ever be undone.

We have such limited, worldly views of success. I don’t doubt my Dad’s over-reaction was a by-product of his desire for me to win. What he may not even grasp today was that I never considered myself an actual loser – despite my multiple failings – until he abandoned me.

When we define success, healing or religion by anything other than God’s standards, we pervert Christ’s teachings and usually leave others feeling confused and alienated. We do well to recall that no one’s purpose is to live up to others’ goals for them; it is to become the men and women we were created to be. As the world attempts to impose its standards of quality upon us, let us never forget that we have different priorities. Our priority – the only one with eternal consequences – is to bring others into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Everything else pales by comparison. When we evaluate achievement, let’s not do so by trying to determine how much of ourselves we put into the process. Let’s evaluate it the way Jesus does, by seeing how many others we can bring into relationship with Him.