Life is so short. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy to approach the very end of your life and realize you had missed life’s primary purpose? Your years of diligent endeavours, hectic work schedules, harrowing balancing acts to manage those competing demands and the skill with which you spun those multiple plates in the air – all that skill, brainpower, energy and commitment evaporating like a wispy vapour before your eyes. The last grains of sand are slipping through the hour-glass of your life.
Imagine approaching the end and being plagued by the question: did I miss the path of God’s will for my life? But it’s too late then to put the brakes on and slam your life into reverse. You are about to say farewell and leave the shores of time. Memories flood your mind. There were those times in the past when the Lord spoke to your heart. But somehow, those red-hot spiritual coals ended up always being buried under the debris of many other ‘pressing’ things in your life.
You remember those special nudges from the Lord. You recall those wistful possibilities, but now they are impossibilities wrapped in dark regret.
Maybe as you read this Bible Bite, your mind is already racing.
“Really, what is holding me back spiritually? What is keeping me from realizing my full potential for the Lord and following the path He has purposed for my life?”
Often there are numerous things in our lives, but when we think of changing our life’s rhythm to honour the Lord – one thing emerges as the largest stumbling block. Perhaps you are in denial about the culprit in your life. You acknowledge it exists, but you try to explain it away. The mental gymnastics are tiring as you try so hard to convince yourself that it is just one of many things but not the primary culprit. But yet, it really is!
So many years ago, a rich young man ran down the road kicking up the dust as he rushed to see Jesus. He had many things in life, and it seemed that if he could obtain eternal life, it would be the icing on his cake of life. With discernment that only God Himself has, Jesus saw through all the layers of that man’s thinking. He didn’t immediately touch the core issue, but He worked the young man through a process of peeling back the layers of the onion of his life. Things seemed to be going reasonably well, and perhaps the young man was hopeful. But there was one more layer to peel away, and here is how the rest of the story goes:
Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Mark 10:21-22
What is the “one thing” that hinders me the most in being the Christian I should be for the Lord?
Click to read a spiritual lesson on the Supreme Court.
There are two dreadful things in life, the painful regret of which can only be truly measured by those experiencing it. The first one is to approach death knowing you have missed accepting Christ as your Saviour. The second is to approach death knowing you have missed following Christ as your Lord.
May I spend time in the Lord’s Presence this week, allowing Him to put His finger on precisely what is holding me back.
Walk carefully and closely with the Lord today.
Warmly in Christ,
Peter Ramsay
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