Photo Credit: palm3559 via sxc.hu
A young man with a question burning in his heart runs up to Jesus, drops to his knees, and asks, "What do I have to do to have eternal life?" Jesus responds by telling him that he already knows what he should be doing—to follow the commands of God. (1)
It's something of a surprise to me, but the man says that he's done all that, ever since he was a boy. (2) Jesus accepts that and looks at him and loves him, (3) and says, "There's one thing you lack. Go and sell what you have, give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven.(4) Then come follow me." Mark 10:21 (ESV). What a moment. I imagine there was a pregnant pause—a long instant where neither the young man nor Jesus even took a breath.
For some reason, I see that young man sitting at a poker table, with a big stack of chips in front of him. He's checking his hand, and on the other side of the table is God in human form calling his bluff, "Are you all in?"
We don't know a whole lot about what happens next. All we know is that the man goes away sad because he had a lot of possessions. I want to think that he dropped his cards, and slid his chips across the table. I find myself rooting for him to cash in, give, and go. I hope that Jesus would have seen him again—maybe he was one of the 72 he sent out ahead of him.
It seems to me, that whenever I encounter Jesus, I have an experience similar to this young man. I have an awareness of his love for me. This continues to surprise me, even after knowing him all these years. When I'm with Jesus, he challenges me in a way that arrests me. Like the young man, I've been doing my best. And like the young man, Jesus points out where I fall short and how I can cooperate with him to fix it.
And every time I'm with him, there's that invitation; "Follow me." What a powerful intoxicating pair of words. There's something deep at the core of me that responds to this—way down in there, I know there's nothing I'd rather have or be or do. I'm itching to slide my chips across the table, look Jesus in the eye and say, "I'm all in."
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(1) I assume that Jesus already knew what was in this young man's heart, and and I wonder if he was kinda testing him with his response. It's like he had a larger perspective and knew where he wanted to go in the conversation. (Gosh, I sure wish I could have a larger perspective in all my conversations!)
(2) My suspicious mind somehow can't quite believe that this guy has lived so rightly—but Jesus doesn't contradict him. And boy oh boy, does that say a lot to me about how I judge other people, even though it's so not my place. In fact, he agrees with him and then "He look at him and loved him.
(3) I wonder what Jesus face looked like—apparently, the love he communicated was so obvious, that Mark picked up on it and wrote it down. I want my face, my gestures and my life to communicate an obvious love to the people around me. I'm guessing that most of the time I'm not. I think I need to let the Spirit in me shine through a bit more—less of me, more of him.
(4) There's a part of me that's really inspired by this challenge. I lean in the direction of the unencumbered life. I've never wanted a lot of stuff, (my problem is that I want really, really nice stuff!) I'm drawn towards giving and generosity. But I recognize that I'm probably blinded to how deep the hold of materialism has on me.