Sometimes in life, I find my perspective can become more than a little askew. Sometimes, I am so focused and what is there in front of me to be done that I lose sight of the bigger picture. Sometimes, I become so entangled in worrying about this or that person or this or that thing that I act as if I am in charge of everything. Sometimes, I leave God out of all my thinking and planning.
This is one key reason I am so thankful when Easter comes and I am faced once again with the enormity of Jesus’ sacrifice for us and the overwhelming hope and freedom his resurrection offers. Somehow, as I sit back and reflect on all this and allow these events to impact me up close and personal, all the other issues and concerns of life that have held full sway take their rightful place again. For me, Easter provides that special time I need to reframe, reassess and regroup.
Recently, I talked with a lady who told me that, now she has finally retired, after working hard all her life, her focus is on doing all the things she has always wanted to do. ‘It’s time for me!’ she declared rather forcefully – and, in one way, she is right. I understood and felt excited for her as she outlined the various interests she was exploring, even as another part of me cringed. Perhaps that is indeed what God has for her right now – perhaps God does want to shower her with blessings and even with unexpected experiences of fulfilment later in life. But as I tried to talk with her about becoming who God has created us to be, I sensed God was only a very vague part of the picture for her, if any part at all. Yet, without God in the picture, what will she have left when she has done all she wants to do and reached the end of her life?
Not long after this conversation, I read again Jesus’ parable of the rich fool in which a rich man decides to tear down his barns and build bigger ones to store all his surplus grain that will last him for years. He decides to take life easy, eating, drinking and generally being merry – but then God speaks to him:
You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ Luke 12:20
Jesus concludes his parable with the following warning:
This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God.’ Luke 12:21
While everything we fill our lives with – activities, hobbies, possessions, people – may be good in themselves, we still need to see them all in the light of the cross, with its stark reminder of what it cost Jesus to bring us back into God’s family. We are not our own, as Paul states, but were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). And as we reflect on the cross, may we also gaze in awe again at the empty tomb that reminds us we have something far more precious than anything this world can offer – the hope of eternal life with our loving Lord and King.
Jo-Anne Berthelsen's Blog 