The missing ingredient

The other day my wife was away in the afternoon so I thoughtI would make spaghetti and meatballs.  Ihad never made meatballs before, but I thought: how hard could it be?  There was this nice little recipe right onthe side of the spaghetti noodle box that seemed to be written with me inmind. 

The problem was I didn’t have all of the ingredients.  It said I needed bread crumbs, for instance,but we didn’t have any.  After scanningthe house I decided that Lipton onion soup mix would certainly do the trick.  It said to add some freshly chopped parsley.  I found some interestingingredients from our spice rack that I figured would do for an amplesubstitute.  (I wonder what this nutmegwill taste like?)  The recipe called foreggs, so I added water. 

As I mashed the ingredients together with the ground beef, Iwas immediately realizing that it wasn’t going to work.  I ended up cooking it all together andcalling it a “meat sauce.”  When my kidstried to eat it they were polite, but ultimately unimpressed.  My oldest took a few bites before sayingkindly, “I really had a big lunch today. I’m just not very hungry.”  Theplates started to scrape their way into the garbage can.  My feelings were not hurt; I thought it was funny.

It occurred to me later that each of us is trying to followa “recipe” in life.  The problem is wedon’t have all of the right ingredients to make it work.  We try all kinds of substitutes and mash themall together hoping that our life’s concoction will be palatable.  But it isn’t. We try sex or relationships or money or success or power to fill thevoid.  But Jesus comes along and declareshimself to be the missing ingredient.  Hesays that he completes the recipe that we cannot complete on our own.  And boy does he ever produce a wonderfulfeast. 

Hey, pass me another one of those meatballs.

Fear is a repellent to Jesus

So I was watching this movie called “The Green Lantern” theother night and noticed a cool biblical idea. The skinny is that the “green” part of the green lantern represents hiswill power.  The more will power, themore green.  The  more green, the more strength.  The opposite of his “will” is his fear.  The more fear, the less green.  You get the idea.

When the ultimatum of the movie is thrown down, the choiceis clear: will the hero succumb to fear or find the strength of his will?  I would substitute the word “will” for theword “faith” to make the biblical parallel more obvious. 

And herein lies our dilemma every single day of ourChristian lives.  Will we succumb to fearor grow in our belief?  The good news isthat we have a power source that is unlike any other.  The Holy Spirit promises to be with uswherever we go, no matter what we encounter. God does not expect us to draw from our own will power but gives us thestrength, through our faith, to overcome fear.

There is an interesting verse that depicts theopposite:
Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear.  So he got into the boat and left.  
(Luke 8:37)

Fear is a repellent to Jesus.

But faith draws him close.

How much is enough?

My newly adopted son Matthew has only been an American for about 3 weeks, but he is getting used to the perks. Coming from the poorest area, of the second poorest country in the world, you might think that it would take him some time to look for the “extras” in life. But it didn’t. Because that’s just not in our human nature. Yesterday he asked me for some water. “Wahalu, wahalu!” I started to pour out water from the tap (as I would do for myself). “NO! NO!” He then pointed to the fridge, where the Brita filtered water is kept. I started pouring from it. “Yes, daddy, yes...Wahalu.”

I smiled but cringed at the same time.

In his shared bedroom with his older brother Micah, he began to point out the discrepancies. He is not able to rationalize that his siblings have been storing up stuff for many years, and he has only had 3 weeks to do so. He pointed to the closet full of his brother’s stuff, and then he said: “Micah’s.” He pointed to three of the dresser drawers: “Micah’s, Micah’s, Micah’s. He pointed at the trophies and the things on top of the dresser: “Micah’s.” On and on this went.

This observation has little to do with my son Matthew, but has everything to do with our human condition. We may start out naked and without any possessions, but we learn very quickly to desire that which is better than what we currently have. We want more and more, better and better. We want what the other person has. We want and want and want. We are unsatisfied people who can never get enough. When we get more, we are unhappy still, and start looking for what's next.

That is, until we sit at the feet of Jesus and be still. We look up to him with pleasure and delight. We realize how fully satisfying he truly is. We ponder all that he has done for us in the past, and all that he will do for us in the future. The stuff begins to fade into the background. It slowly becomes Him alone. It is simply…Jesus.

Only…Jesus.