Thoughts for another day

Aug. 27, 2013.

Today's verse: Matt. 7:14. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (NRSV – copyright ack.)

(Pls. read the above before you read further.  Thanks)

I have realised and I believe you too would have, that to do and keep doing the right things, there’s much effort required.  Let’s take a simple thing like getting up in the morning – no matter how much sleep we’ve had, we still don’t want to get up and would love that five more minutes or even two more minutes of sleep, isn’t it?  So it is with church services, many fail to go saying they’ll go the next time and so on and so forth.  It’s only when absolutely necessary and we see some kind of penalty if we don’t do a particular task, that we tend to do it, even if rather disinterestedly!

It’s indeed surprising that any good thing you need to do, doesn’t just happen; on the other hand, what’s bad just happens.  If you eat more, you automatically tend to put on weight and get fat.  Interestingly, we humans always want to eat more – not less.  If we work in offices, we always want to be assigned easy tasks to do and those that take less time, but at the same time we want to be paid equal wages, no?  We always want to take it easy, but also to be rewarded largely, even if we’ve never been instruments of great work.  But it’s an established fact that we always veer toward ease. 

Then we wonder, why Jesus asked us to move in into His Kingdom through the narrow gate and the hard road which He says leads to life.  It’s because as we move through such a gate, we’re tried by fire and pruned to be real instruments of His, walking in the light of His will.  It does mean a life of difficulty but also: absolute faith in our God.  It’s a path, strewn on which, are stumbling blocks at every turn and bend.  That’s where our faith in God will be tested and that’s what will increase it and we’ll find our God neither forgets nor slumbers in His task of taking care of us.  In it we’ll also understand how to live in heaven on earth and be pleasing to Him, Who is in control of our lives beyond this one and then will we be made ready for eternal life of bliss.  Yea, and while the worldly road is easy and many walk in them, the end thereof is destruction and dismay.