The Other Side of the Desert.
How do you use your power?
While meditating on MT 4 about Jesus’ 40 days in the desert this was brought to mind. It said that after fasting and being alone in a barren place and that Jesus was hungry. While the story leaves to our imagination what Jesus endured in the desert, one can only imagine what must have gone through his soul.
The story suggests that the Tempter came along at what appeared to be a moment of weakness in Jesus’ life. The goal was to get Jesus to use his power to save himself.
Evil used sustenance, beauty and power to tempt Jesus.
How often are you tempted by sustenance, beauty and power?
I know there are times when I am feeling lonely, tired, hungry and weaker than usual that I want to use my power to save myself. I want to depend on myself to relieve myself of what I am facing or have just faced.
But the story teaches that Jesus never used his power to save himself, rather he used it to resist the temptation to save himself.
He used his power to continually trust God.
He used his power to resist the voice that wanted to take him down and chose to listen to the Voice within that reminded him of who he was as God’s son.
He allowed God to sustain him.
Imagine if we used our power in the same manner. Imagine if we used our power to resist the temptation to save ourselves from what the world tempts us to think is the way. Imagine if we used our power to simply trust God.
Imagine if we used our power to listen to the Voice within that reminds us that we belong to God.
I am not suggesting that we are Jesus, I am suggesting that we need to silence and resist the voices in the same manner he did.
In order to that, we must know who we are as children of God.It is when we are tired, hungry, alone, and weak that we need to speak out against those things that want to steal away God’s desire for us.
The story ends by telling us that the devil left him and the angels came and attended him.
This story ultimately reveals Jesus’ identity, and it can remind us of our identity.We always need to be reminded of who we are as God’s beloved. Our fear and pain may tempt us to seek sustenance, beauty and power, but the truth is that by holding on, God will not leave us alone, but will send his angels to attend to us-- especially when we have just walked through the desert.
7 Comments:
One of my favorite lines is, "Lead me not into temptation - I can find it all by myself, just fine."
(An aside - I can't hear the word "sustenance" without hearing Daffy Duck or Sylvester the Cat's voice. Just one of those idiosyncracies that make me so charming, I guess...)
How often are you tempted by sustenance, beauty and power?
About every damn day, Rick. If not more often than that. The whole HALT syndrome (hungry, angry, lonely, or tired) gets me there quick. Fear and resentment get me there, too.
But the fact is, when I'm headed toward sustenance, beauty or power, I'm admitting that I believe I don't have enough of any of those things.
Less than two weeks from the end of my current employment, it would be real easy to say that my problem is money, or at least security. Going through my apartment, and seeing the parts that still need cleaning or unpacking, it seems that I need more time to do stuff (just another name for sustenance), or to develop more order in my life (simple power and control issues). And when I look in the mirror and decide that I'm not attractive enough to interest a potential partner - employer, date, friend, whatever - I'm just focusing on beauty (or my lack thereof).
Isn't amazing what I can get into, when I take my eyes off my savior?
I am convinced that the six words that will kill me will not be, "Hey, bartender, pour me a drink," or "How much does that pistol cost?" The six words that will almost certainly kill me will be, "No problem...I can handle it." If I can just get enough (whatever the heck that is) of those three magic ingredients, I'll be just fine. Yeah, right.
On the other hand, it's equally amazing what God can help me to do when I choose to focus on God's power, and stop trying to rely on my own. Because no matter how smart I get, I'm pretty damn sure that God's plan for me is a whole lot better than mine is...period.
Damn it, Rick...got me thinkin' again. I guess it's a good thing...
Oh yeah! You hit the nail on the head...I am always trying to "handle" everything. I have control issues...
Thanks,
I needed this!
Right now at my job there's a big huge project being done, and we were all ordered to be at a nine o'clock meeting.
Okay, fine. I leave my house with half an hour travel time, and I get a call from a coworker:
We were supposed to be there at 8:30, she said to me. Weren't you at the meeting? (no, I was in a conference. No one called me.)
I was annoyed, to put it mildly.
For the first ten minutes of my commute, I raged. Turned my radio down and shouted out to God, "dammit, I'm pissed! I am not happy about this!"
when i was done raging, i said to God, "okay, I want to forgive these people and I want to calm down." i recognized the trap, i had prayed for peace and to be the eye of the storm while everyone freaked around me.
So, on to the meeting I went, collared my director (well, not collared, but gently took by the arm and steered him to a private spot), and told him in no uncertain terms how angry I was about it, because I knew how important it was. I also told him that I would be fine, I would not continue to be angry, that I'd forgiven it already, thank God, but I wanted him to know what had happened.
He apologized. I thanked him.
When I got to my seat, lo and behold, the people with whom we were to start the meeting weren't there yet. They had gotten lost on the way in.
One disbelieving chuckle later, in my head, "Okay, God. Sorry about that. And thanks for the reminder."
Today He only had to use the 3.4 inch mallet to tap me on the head. He's had to use the big honkers before, but He's making me better at it. :) Turning it over to Him, that is. Hee hee hee.
God obviously likes using you to spread His message, here is another POWERFUL post with an equally POWERFUL comment from Steve F.
I am tempted by all three often, but most often by power (control).
As for beauty, I used to place my value in my looks and felt I "deserved" a beautiful man in my life. Took me long enough, but I can honestly say I look into someone's heart and mind to find beauty now.
As far as stuff, I have little and like it that way but do worry about $$$ sometimes. I like to live simply, with the basics (computer and iPod are basic right?)
But like Steve said, I try to overcome and perservere in my own power saying "I can handle it". I can't handle it! I've been mess up my life constantly UNLESS I remember to go to My Father for help.
I think this will be a life long lesson.
Great post. I recently wrote an essay dealing with a historical hero of mine. I used Jesus for that and one of the reasons I mentioned I adored him was his ability to resist temptation in the desert. I also said that I believe everyone who is able should atleast once in their lives journey out to their own "desert" for forty days of comtemplation, prayer, and worship.
I also liked the comment by Steve F. with the acronym HALT. I think I will use that one in my future teaching career. Thanks guys.
Do you always get comments so long? Anyway, the words I can think of to describe your blog and writing are beautiful, gentle, insightful...
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and revelations. I'll add a link to this soon....
Thank you so much for your inspirational thoughts. You depicted Jesus the way I perceive him. I look forward to reading more entries.
Post a Comment
<< Home