Ever had a time when you were forced to do a bunch of steps you felt were unnecessary before having a chance to do that which you felt you could do all along? There is something about the process that just seems so demeaning and unfair.
The funny thing about having to go through these things first, is that I have yet to hear of anyone that complains about it in the end. Once the preliminary work is done, we get the pay off from our persistence. We didn’t know it beforehand, but as a result of the long and seemingly-unreasonable process we are better equipped to do the work without wavering and failing. The persistence pays off!
I’m reminded of the story from The Karate Kid where Daniel-san goes to Mr. Miyagi to learn karate. Instead, Miyagi shows Daniel the floor of his home and asks him to get on his hands and knees and sand it. Daniel also gets to wash Miyagi’s fleet of old, dirty cars and give them a coat of wax. Daniel-san feels like he is being taken for granted as free labor doing Miyagi’s menial work. How wrong Daniel-san was.
Jesus called upon a rich young ruler to take the Daniel-san challenge in Mark 10:17-21:
17As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’[a]”
20“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Jesus takes a rich young ruler who believes he has everything he needs to know eternal life. He has trained and learned from the Jewish law and has upheld it. All he needs is the blessing from his master and it will be done. However, the master tells him that he still needs to learn more, but first he must give up what is most-important to him and become humble. With that, we learn the young ruler just couldn’t get himself to give up his riches to find the great reward:
22At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
Are we willing to give up our riches (or our: pride, comfort, secure job, worldly relationships, home) in order to become humble and learn the way of the master Christ Jesus? Or do we come to him with our religion and our thoughts of being good-hearted and believe that we deserve entrance into the kingdom of heaven on our terms?
Unfortunately for us as human flesh, it requires discipline, faithfulness and humbleness to obtain greatness. Fortunately for us as human flesh, God knew we couldn’t make it on our own and sent his Son Jesus to intercede for us--he is our peace, hope, comforter, and rock of support. All we have to do is walk away from the things we cling to in this world and follow our master and continue learning. Repeat after me…
- wax on…wax off.
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