Isn’t it funny? The believer spends his/her life claiming to want to be “like Christ”, to (as Paul put it) grow in the knowledge and love of Him… And yet the only investment we want to make is to step aside at the till at the supermarket, to help little old ladies across the street, to give two bucks to a “street person”. When it comes down to it, we’re unwilling to get uncomfortable to be like Christ; for it only makes sense up to a point. And of course that kind of likeness to Christ is superficial, like make-up. Deep inside ourselves we remain the same.


I was watching a “makeover” show the other day, and again and again I am amazed by the ability mankind has to believe “making over” the outside can change a person. We are so hungry to experience a change in the inner man, but we have no idea how to go about it. We want healing from our bad thoughts about ourselves, so we make over the outside, because everyone knows that beautiful people are happy people, right? Could it be that deep hunger to be as we were created to be drives us to buy the next car, get the next job, or wife (or husband), or dress (or shoes), or ____- fill in the blanks. We are so driven by our desire to silence that longing- the longing for our Creator, the longing to be as we should be- and yet we can’t identify it as such. So we keep throwing things into the gaping hole, hoping either to stuff it shut, or to finally satisfy it. As my friend reminded me recently, we’re people living in sandcastles, longing for the palaces we were designed for.


For the believer to become a little more like Christ, God often has to pull out the rug from under him/her. We won’t willingly go to the cross. No, we’re comfortable here, and won’t leave our comfort zone. But when you really think about it, Christ was hardly, if ever, comfortable while He walked the earth. And as the writer of Hebrews wrote, He learned obedience through suffering. And how can a servant be greater than his master? There will be a time to embrace the cross, knowing the Father’s loving hand will stay the trouble or pain well before it’s past enduring. The point is not the pain- it never was.