Imagine also that there are various stops along the way. There's the Island of Nautical Education and the Discount Raft Depot. There's the Raft Shack, which sells yummy snacks and umbrellas and sun hats. There are also sharp dangerous rocks protruding from the water where we see the remains of other's rafts.
As we pull ourselves across the river, we hope that we'll experience the delightful things in life and avoid the difficult bits. But there's no telling where we'll land. Likewise in life, we do our best, believing our efforts will lead us to the nice things: a kind spouse, a fulfilling job, some healthy children, a good digestion, no enemies, good return on our investments, and a comfortable retirement. But more often than naught, we find ourselves in places we didn't want to go. We watch the islands pass us by. We see other people land on them instead.
We've had our own stops too, but they weren't the stops we were hoping for. We wanted the private school instead of the public school, those friendships instead of these friendships, the emotionally-sensitive husband instead of the determined goal-oriented husband.
By setting our hearts on getting what we want, we set ourselves up for tragedy, depression, and hopelessness. We grasp them in our minds as if they were ours, believing that if we do x, y, and z, we can get this or that. We are trying to work out our own formulas for bliss. But only God knows what will make us happy, and he has determined that it's not those islands where we wished we'd landed. Happiness is trusting God on the islands where we have landed. He has charted our course. He knows what will work.
He does not want us to put our hope in those stops at all. Rather, we're to hope in the rope that we hold, hope that that rope will take us to the islands where God's goodness and glory and satisfaction will be found.
Thus, we must stop looking where others have landed, and instead look where God has landed us. Ask the Lord, what do you have for me here? What are you doing here on these islands? In these circumstances? With these people? With these disabilities? With this sinner?
And by all means, we mustn't let go of that rope by trying to get to delights we think we deserve. That rope, Jesus Christ that is, is the only way to reach the other side.
"And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, 'Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we're off to such and such a city for a year. We're going to start a business and make a lot of money.' You don't know the first thing about tomorrow. You're nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, 'If the Master wills it and we're still alive, we'll do this or that.'" (James 4:13-15 MSG)
Posts
Comments