I make choices everyday. I am proud of my accomplishments but should I be? Jesus said, "you cannot make even one hair white or black." What if I'd been born in abject poverty or in a place where women are held down and must be hidden away? What if I'd been born with an extreme handicap or mental illness? Let's face it I've won a lottery that I didn't buy a ticket for.
What if the questions I asked in the last paragraph were true? Would my life still be worth living? Would I still be of value? This is what Jesus had to say about our worth, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." and "For God so loved the world he sent his only Son." (paraphrase John 3:16)
I used to think that somehow I chose Christ but the reality is I didn't. I called out to him out of complete desperation that had nothing to do with material possessions. I realized that I was alone, completely and utterly alone. I had friends, family, a boyfriend and yet I was alone, unmoored, adrift. I couldn't help myself out of this situation. So I reached out and grabbed the hand that was reaching toward me. He pulled me out, he took me in, he wrapped his arms around me. He demonstrated his love to me, he showed me the cross and the nails that seemingly held him there. He taught me to know that it wasn't the nails that kept him on the cross or the soldiers or the angry mobs, it was Love. He showed me that I was not meant to be alone. I was meant to be with him. Once he rescued me I saw the futility in hanging onto the floating wreckage of this world; possessions and ambitions, status, education and beauty. Even if I built those things together they wouldn't make a boat. They would be cobbled together pieces that at best made a leaky raft. We can loose our possessions, our status, our beauty even our intelligence. We may never attain our ambitions and after all we end up in a grave, alone. But Christ is more than a boat upon a sea he is dry land. He is home.
I have possessions, I have a job that I enjoy, I have dear family and friends, these things are not bad. But sometimes I forget that all of it can disappear in an instant. I forget that I "cannot add one day to my life by worrying." That I "can't even change the colour of my own hair."(dye grows out eventually) I begin to believe that some of those things are really important, that they make up who I am. I forget that the One from whom all blessings flow "is before all things, and in him all things hold together." When this happens I begin to roam. I don't get very far though he always taps me on the shoulder and reminds me of who I really am and to remember "who I was when God called me. I was not considered wise by human standards. Nor powerful." [paraphrase 1 Cor 1:26] The great thing about having Christ as my home is that He is always there around the next bend in the road waiting for me to realize that. "Because of what God has done, we belong to Christ Jesus. He has become God's wisdom for us. He makes us right with God. He makes us holy and sets us free."(1 Cor. 1:30)
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me;
See, on the portals he's waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
Come home, come home,
Ye who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home.
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