Friends,

In the 25th Psalm David asks God to teach him, to lead him, and to show him his way. As followers of God, don’t we ask for the same thing? We want to become like Jesus. We ask God to teach and guide us. We ask him to help us become more like him. When am I the most apt to pay attention? When am I the most teachable? What is God trying to teach me? What is the essence of being like Jesus?

I pay closer attention when my circumstances are difficult. I am most teachable during hardship. It’s ironic that when hard times occur I don’t see them as an answer to prayer but as some kind of judgement from God. I have to admit that some, if not most, of my difficulty is just the natural consequence of my poor choices. It’s hard to complain to God when I harvest what I have sown. I do anyway. I bet my complaints sound to him much like a whining child does to me. Sometimes things happen that have nothing to do with what I have done. Do you think God introduces difficulty into our lives as an answer to our prayers to become like Jesus? Are there people who learn best when their sails are full of wind and their seas are calm?

When I see difficult circumstances appear, I don’t embrace them as prayers answered. I see them as pain to be avoided or medicated. I short-circuit the process of what I desire most. Here’s the thing. The process of killing what I was and becoming what God wants is not painless. It hurts. As I become more alive in Christ there’s another part of me that is dying a slow painful death.

During hard times I try to manage. I complain. My actions demonstrate a refusal to accept from God what I have asked him to help me do. I’m starving but I refuse to eat. I’m thirsty but I won’t drink. How patient he is with me! Sometimes God allows me to manage on my own. He doesn’t force me to eat or drink what he knows to be good for me. My self-management doesn’t really bring me any relief it just takes me deeper into a dark pit. How far can I sink before I hit the bottom? In Lamentations 3 the prophet Jeremiah spoke to God from the “bottom of the pit.” He recognized that God was his “portion.” What does that mean? He realized that his “portion” was all that he needed and all that he had left. That’s where I am going, but I think I’m going the long way.

I’m learning that all I need is God. That’s what he wants to teach me if I will but embrace the lesson and not avoid it, deflect it, or refuse it. I imagine God’s love for me as just warm and tender. I expect his love to make me feel that way. Although God’s love for me is always warm and tender, it doesn’t always feel that way. It sometimes hurts. Is the essence of being like Jesus as simple as recognizing by the way I live that he is all I need? I want to believe what is true so that my feelings are based in reality. What do you think?

Caleb