I was sitting around just thinking about some things in my life and reflecting a little bit on yesterday's sermon at church and I remembered a message I had heard many months ago. Tim had mentioned in his sermon yesterday that he hears many people make the statement, "Doesn't anyone care about what I think or what I want?"
I'm remembering that today as I'm thinking about some of the things in my life that aren't exactly going as well as I'd hoped. Deep down I know what I want. I know the desires of my heart. I let myself get down and ill sometimes because after all, "doesn't anyone care about what I think or what I want?"
If you've ever been around an adolescent who is being disciplined you know the look and attitude I'm fixing to describe. That attitude that I'm being mistreated because I'm not getting to do or go where I want and no matter what anyone says, or how much sense it makes, I'm just going to be mad and pout. I know you've seen that look. And to those with small children, if you haven't seen it yet, just wait.
It occurred to me this weekend that we must look much like this in our Heavenly Father's eyes. When things don't go our way we pout. We cry out about how it isn't fair and it doesn't make sense. He has given us so much, even our being and yet our only focus is on how we are being mistreated. We've been good. We haven't done anything really wrong. Why can't we have what we want.
As I came to this realization about how I must look to the Father, I must say I was a bit embarrassed. That doesn't mean I won't do it again very soon or that I'm cured forever from being a self-centered, selfish person. It will happen again. But I hope when I see/feel that look on the face of my heart that I'll remember it isn't about me getting what I want.
That leads me to my second thought today, the message I remembered from months back. I was at a worship conference last summer and heard a music minister sharing some words on being the lead worshippers (the phrase they use in place of worship leader). He likened it to a bottle of water. He said to a thirsty person a bottle of water is life giving. It replenishes and cleanses. It is necessary.
I can bring someone a bottle of water and they can be replenished, but I'm not the source of their renewal. I didn't make the water and more than that, the only place I can get the water is from the source. Jesus is the source that the people need. As a Christian, all I can do is bring the source to the one's who need it. I'm a re-source. Just like a bottle, I can run between the source and the need, being filled and poured out over and over again. That is my real job as a Christian. As a believer and disciple, I become a resource to those who have no connection or way to get to the source.
So just as Robert Frost once wrote, "Two roads diverged in a wood," (Thank you Mrs. Spence's English Class), I have ran all over the place in this post. But, I think for me the truth is this - as long as I'm sitting around thinking, "Doesn't anyone care what I want or what I think", I'm missing my chance to be filled and to be a resource. Someone does really care. Jesus cares. And He loves me no matter what path I choose, but to agree with Frost, "I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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