March 2012

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Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 73: 25-26


Content

Ever felt that the people closest to you, your family and friends, just really don't know or understand you very well?  Ever expected something of them, and felt let down when they didn't come through? I know a young man who felt that way on his birthday one year.

He was in his mid-twenties when it happened, and though he was mature enough to understand all the logical reasons why his closest family and friends couldn't be with him on his special day, it hurt a lot that they weren't.  He prepared his own birthday supper and this and other things made him feel neglected and unloved.  He was wise enough not to let his hurt feelings fester without talking to them about it, but even after talking with them and accepting their apologies, he continued to feel the loss.  Not sharply and not bitterly, but more in that perplexed way a kid who's lost a tooth unconsciously sends his tongue to feel the empty spot.  What he had expected to be there because it always had been, wasn't.

Who wrote "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS" (John 19: 19b) on a sign and hung it over the dying Christ on the cross?  Was it one of the disciples?  A family member? Nope, it was Pilate himself, and when the chief priests asked him to change it, to soften it down to, "He said, I am the King of the Jews," Pilate refused.  "What I have written, I have written," he answered  (John 19:22). It's not always the people we might expect to understand us, who do.

And who came to Pilate to request Jesus' dead body so it could be prepared for the grave? Disciples?  Family members?  His closest friends?  The people He had healed?  Again, no.

. . . Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him permission.  So he came and took the body of Jesus.  And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.  John 19: 38-39

Two men who had visited Jesus by night because they feared the repercussions of coming to Him openly were the ones who came to perform this last ministry to His broken body.  It's not always the people we might expect to minister to us, who do.

So, what am I getting at here?  Simply this:  just because someone loves us, the way that young birthday man's family members truly loved him, it doesn't mean that they'll necessarily understand us or automatically know how to minister to us in ways that help us feel loved and cared for.  People will often let us down, not because they don't love us, but because they are flawed human beings just like us.  And we will, in turn, often let them down.  But rather than lamenting what we don't have, we can choose to focus on what we do have, a helper who will never let us down.

Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have.  For He himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  So we may boldly say:  The Lord is my helper: I will not fear what man can do to me." Hebrews 13: 5-6

            Of course, having the Lord as our helper doesn't absolve us of ministering to each other to the best of our abilities.  But when we feel neglected and let down by the people we expected to minister to us who didn't, we can find comfort in remembering that we have a Helper, our Creator and the Lover of our souls, who will always be there to minister to us in ways even we can't know we need.   In this we can be content.

 

 

Daye Phillippo

February 2012