I remember, having recently graduated high school, asking myself that if I could throw all my energy into developing one talent, what that would be. Considering the options, I decided that nothing would develop me more than reading. With the knowledge I would develop in my studies, I thought, I could learn a range of skills that would be more useful than any I would learn from another pursuit. It suited me, too, because for the first time in my life, I liked reading. Thus, I took up the task of reading, learning all I could from my college classes in order to be a thoughtful, informed, and useful person.
Over time, I found that others had set themselves to the same task. In fact, the very discipline I chose-- history-- proved to me that men had long ago not only developed themselves, but had gone much further and had thought about the great problems of the world. They had built in their minds ideal societies with equally shared resources, perfect prisons, satisfied subjects, and equality between the sexes, among other things. They had pored over tomes to construct in their minds perfect civilizations, and they had dreamed of seeing their visions for posterity come to fruition. They wanted to share their learning with others, writing volume upon countless volume to educate the studied elites, to convert the world and so begin to realize their progressive societies. If this had been my goal, I had been born too late.
Actually, I never had any intention of changing the world in such revolutionary ways. I wanted simply, in my adolescent self-importance, to be someone important. More than anything, I wanted to be noticed. It wouldn't surprise me to think that many of the men I'd read about started out the same way. Some of them, at least, pursued immortality with their philosophic or scientific discoveries, hoping they would be praised by history. They certainly had the talent and drive to do so.
Juxtapose these men and me, however, with Jesus. Here was a man (the God-man) who spent three years in the service of a human race that would reject him, who had little privacy and little rest away from the masses, and whose pursuit of his Father's will to the end-- an end that included an excruciating and spiritually lonely death-- proved that he wanted so much more than to be remembered by history as a "good man." His intentions are much more visible when you think of what he knew. He knew that those he healed would leave him, that those he taught would harden themselves against him, and that those he loved would question him even after his physical resurrection. Here was a man who said he came not to bring peace, but a sword, who knew that his words would "turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." Add to all this the fact that he never sinned-- not once-- amid more turmoil than any of us have ever experienced. Realistically, I would likely have stopped doing near the beginning-- for the benefit of my own comfort-- what he continued to do for so long.
It's easy to call yourself a failure when comparing yourself to God, I guess; but I hope my knowledge of just how much of a burden he chose to endure for so much more than the title of "good man" in the history books will remind me to be humble with others. I hope it will remind me of how life could have turned out without his sacrifice, how derelict and empty I would be in this world without the hope of relating to and drawing on my Creator. On my death bed, it will be good to think not of what I have done, but of the fuller life I lived because it was in his heart to relate to me.
Over time, I found that others had set themselves to the same task. In fact, the very discipline I chose-- history-- proved to me that men had long ago not only developed themselves, but had gone much further and had thought about the great problems of the world. They had built in their minds ideal societies with equally shared resources, perfect prisons, satisfied subjects, and equality between the sexes, among other things. They had pored over tomes to construct in their minds perfect civilizations, and they had dreamed of seeing their visions for posterity come to fruition. They wanted to share their learning with others, writing volume upon countless volume to educate the studied elites, to convert the world and so begin to realize their progressive societies. If this had been my goal, I had been born too late.
Actually, I never had any intention of changing the world in such revolutionary ways. I wanted simply, in my adolescent self-importance, to be someone important. More than anything, I wanted to be noticed. It wouldn't surprise me to think that many of the men I'd read about started out the same way. Some of them, at least, pursued immortality with their philosophic or scientific discoveries, hoping they would be praised by history. They certainly had the talent and drive to do so.
Juxtapose these men and me, however, with Jesus. Here was a man (the God-man) who spent three years in the service of a human race that would reject him, who had little privacy and little rest away from the masses, and whose pursuit of his Father's will to the end-- an end that included an excruciating and spiritually lonely death-- proved that he wanted so much more than to be remembered by history as a "good man." His intentions are much more visible when you think of what he knew. He knew that those he healed would leave him, that those he taught would harden themselves against him, and that those he loved would question him even after his physical resurrection. Here was a man who said he came not to bring peace, but a sword, who knew that his words would "turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." Add to all this the fact that he never sinned-- not once-- amid more turmoil than any of us have ever experienced. Realistically, I would likely have stopped doing near the beginning-- for the benefit of my own comfort-- what he continued to do for so long.
It's easy to call yourself a failure when comparing yourself to God, I guess; but I hope my knowledge of just how much of a burden he chose to endure for so much more than the title of "good man" in the history books will remind me to be humble with others. I hope it will remind me of how life could have turned out without his sacrifice, how derelict and empty I would be in this world without the hope of relating to and drawing on my Creator. On my death bed, it will be good to think not of what I have done, but of the fuller life I lived because it was in his heart to relate to me.
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