Yet, my brothers, I do not consider
myself to have “arrived”, spiritually, nor do I consider myself already
perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which
Christ grasped me. My brothers, I do not consider myself to have fully grasped
it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with
hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal — my
reward the honor of being called by God in Christ. All of us who are
spiritually adult should set ourselves this sort of ambition, and if at present
you cannot see this, yet you will find that this is the attitude which God is
leading you to adopt. (Philippians 3:13-15)
You have one. I
have one. Truth is, we all have one. It’s a sack. A burlap sack. You may not be
aware of it; maybe you were never told. On the other hand, maybe you just don’t
remember. But it was given to you. A sack. An itchy, scratchy burlap sack. And
you needed that sack so you could carry the rocks. Stones, boulders, pebbles.
All sizes. All shapes. All unwanted. You didn’t ask for them. You didn’t even
look for them. They were given to you. Some were rocks of rejection. For
instance, you were probably given one that time you didn’t make the team. It
wasn’t due to a lack of effort – heaven knows how much you practiced. You
thought you were good enough for the team, but the coach didn’t. The instructor
didn’t. You thought you were good enough, but they said you weren’t. They and
how many others?
And you don’t
have to live long before you get a collection of these rocks. Make a poor
grade. Make a bad choice. Make a mess. Get called a few names. Get mocked. Get
abused. But the rocks don’t stop with adolescence. How many people do you know who’ve
applied for a job, only to be rejected. Again. And again. And again. Maybe you’ve
been one of the applicants. And so the sack gets heavy. Heavy with rocks. Rocks
of rejection. Rocks we don’t deserve. But if you look closely into the burlap
sack, you’ll see that not all of the rocks are from rejections. There’s a
second type of rock. Those are the rocks of regret.
Regret for the
time you lost your temper. Regret for the day you lost control. Regret for the
moment you lost your pride. Regret for the years you lost your priorities. Maybe
regret for the hour you lost your innocence. One rock after another; one guilty
stone after another. With time the sack gets really heavy, and we get tired.
How can you have dreams for the future when all of your energy is required to
shoulder the past? No wonder some people look miserable. That sack slows our steps.
The sack chafes. It helps explain the irritation on so many faces, the drag in
so many steps, the sag in so many shoulders and, most of
all, the desperation in so many acts. We’re consumed with doing whatever it
takes to get some rest. So we take the sack to the office. We resolve to work harder
so that we’ll forget about the sack. We arrive early and stay late. People are
impressed. But when it’s time to go home, there’s the sack — waiting to be
carried out the door.
Or, you carry
the rocks to happy hour. With a name like that, it must bring relief you say to
yourself. So you set the sack on the floor, sit on the stool, and drink a few.
The music gets loud and your head gets light. But then it’s time to go, and you
look down and there’s the sack.
Maybe you drag
it into therapy. You sit on the couch with the sack at your feet and spill all of
those stones onto the floor and name them one by one. The therapist listens.
She empathizes. Some helpful counsel is given. But when time’s up, you’re
obliged to pick up all those stones, put them back in the sack and take them back
home with you. Some even take the sack to church. Perhaps religion will help,
we think. But instead of removing a few stones, some well-meaning but misguided
preacher may add to your load. Unfortunately, God’s messengers sometimes give
more hurt than help. And you might leave the church with a few new rocks in
your sack.
The result? A
person slugging his way through life, weighed down by the past. I don’t know if
you’ve noticed, but it’s hard to be thought-full when you’re carrying a burlap
sack full of rocks. It’s hard to be affirming when you’re affirmation-starved.
It’s hard to be forgiving when you feel guilty. Paul had an interesting
observation about the way we treat people. He said it about marriage, but the
principle applies in any relationship. “Men ought to give
their wives the love they naturally have for their own bodies. The love a man
gives his wife is the extending of his love for himself to enfold her.”
(Eph. 5:28) In other words, there’s a correlation between the way you feel
about yourself and the way you feel about others. If you’re at peace with
yourself — if you like yourself — you will get along with others.
The converse is
also true. If you don’t like yourself, if you’re ashamed, embarrassed, or
angry, other people are going to know it. And the real tragic part of the
burlap-sack story is that we tend to throw our stones at the people we love –
unless the cycle is interrupted. Which takes us to the question, “So how, then,
does a person get relief?” And the answer? One of the kindest verses in the
Bible: “Come to me, all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will
give you rest. Accept my teachings and learn from me, because I am gentle and
humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives. The teaching I ask you
to accept is easy; the load I give you to carry is light.” (Matt. 11:28—30)
You probably knew
I was going to say that. “But I’ve tried that. I’ve read the Bible, I’ve sat on
the pew — but I’ve never received relief,” you say. Well, could it be that you
went to religion and didn’t go to God? Could it be that you went to a church,
but never saw Christ? “Come to me,” Jesus says. But it’s easy to go to the
wrong place. I’ve done it myself. I was at the airport in San Francisco waiting
to catch my return flight to San Diego. I’d checked my bag, had my ticket in
hand and went to the gate. I went through security, took my seat, and waited
for the flight to be called. I waited and waited and waited — finally, I went
to the desk to ask the attendant when they were going to call my flight. She
looked at me and said, “You’re at the wrong gate, sir.” Now, what if I’d pouted
and sighed, “Well, I guess there isn’t a flight to San Diego after all. Looks
like I’m stuck.” If you’d have been there, you would have said to me, “You’re
not stuck. You’re just at the wrong gate. Go down to the right gate and try
again.” And it’s not that you haven’t tried — you’ve tried for years to deal
with your past. Alcohol. Drug abuse. Workaholism. Religion. Maybe you’re just stuck
at the wrong gate.
In 1904, William
Borden, heir to the Borden Dairy Estate, graduated from a Chicago high school a
millionaire, and his parents gave him a trip around the world. Traveling
through Asia, the Middle East and Europe gave Borden a real burden for the
world’s hurting people. Writing home, he said, "I’m going to give my life
to prepare for the mission field." When he made that decision, he wrote in
the back of his Bible two words: NO RESERVES.
Borden arrived
at Yale University in 1905. During his first semester, Borden started a movement
that eventually transformed the entire campus. His friend wrote, "It was
well on in the first term when Bill and I began to pray together in the morning
before breakfast. We had been meeting only a short time when a third student
joined us and soon after a fourth.” Borden’s group was the beginning of daily
groups of prayer that spread to every one of the college classes. By the end of
his first year, 150 freshmen had become interested in meeting for weekly Bible
studies. By the time he was a senior, 1,000 out of the 1,300 students were
meeting in groups like these.
Borden also made
it his habit to choose the most "difficult" students and attempt to
bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Borden’s friend wrote, "In
his sophomore year we organized Bible study groups and divided up the class of
300 or more, each man interested taking a certain number, so that all might, if
possible, be reached. The names were gone over one by one, and the question
asked, ‘Who will take this person or that?’ When it came to one who was a hard
proposition, there would be an ominous pause. Nobody wanted the responsibility.
Then Bill’s voice would be heard, ’Put him down to me.’"
However, Borden
did not confine his work to Yale. He rescued drunks on the streets of New Haven
and founded the Yale Hope Mission to rehabilitate them. Borden’s biographer
wrote, "He might often be found in the lower parts of the city at night,
on the street, in a cheap lodging house or some restaurant to which he had
taken a poor hungry fellow to feed him, seeking to lead men to Christ." By
this time, Borden had already formed his purpose of becoming a missionary to
the Muslims in China. A purpose from which he never wavered. He inspired his
classmates to do likewise. "Although he was a millionaire,” his friend
later remembered, “Bill seemed to realize always that he must be about his
Father’s business, and not wasting time in the pursuit of amusement." And
although he refused to join a fraternity, he did more with his classmates in
his senior year than ever. In fact, he presided over the huge student
missionary conference held at Yale, and was elected president of Phi Beta
Kappa. Turning down high paying job offers after graduating from Yale, Borden
entered two more words in his Bible: NO RETREATS.
Completing his studies
at Princeton Theological Seminary, Borden sailed for China to work with
Muslims, stopping first in Egypt to study Arabic. While in Egypt, however, he
was stricken with spinal meningitis and died within a month at the age of 25. Borden
had not only given his wealth, but – ultimately – himself. “Wow, what a waste,”
we might say. Not in God’s economy. Because in his Bible, underneath the words
NO RESERVES and NO RETREATS, Borden had written the words NO REGRETS.
We don’t need to
live a life filled with regrets because “(i)f we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all
unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) It’s the soap-dish verse. God says he’ll give
you a bath; get rid of the dirt in your life, forgive you and wipe away your
sins. The result? “No condemnation now hangs over the head of
those who are ‘in’ Jesus Christ.” (Rom 8:1) Translation? No regrets, because
what’s left to regret? It’s been forgiven, and the condemnation that came with
it no longer exists.
How would your
life change if you accepted God’s grace and forgiveness and let go of those regrets?
Jesus said, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and
destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (John 10:10) Are
you letting the thief of regret steal a rich and satisfying life from you? If
so, let Jesus be the rock collector and leave yours at the Cross. Word
has it that Jesus knows how to move stones.
Grace,
Randy
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