Am I Acting Like the Rich Young Ruler?

             We have had some challenging days in recent months. Many of you who know us well know that my sweet momma got very sick and we almost lost her several times. She spent 40+ days in the hospital, and most of those days were without improvement. The first 30 days were a full blown nightmare. The hospital made huge errors and the doctors disagreed on her diagnosis and stopped treating her, like I said, a nightmare. She was sent to rehab before her body was ready and she relapsed in a few days and ended up in the ER of another local hospital. This hospital helped to turn everything around. What a difference it makes when doctors actually care about their patients. Within a week or so, she was off of oxygen, getting stronger and is now at our house recovering. She has a long road ahead of her, but she is moving forward. We give all glory to God for her improvement, and we are SO grateful for so many of you praying for her and for us. We would appreciate your continued prayers as she recovers.

             Now, back to the rich young ruler….sort of. Because of all of the stuff with my momma, life has been quite different in our household. I am NOT complaining, just stating fact. Full time care giving is not for wimps! It’s often a tough job. Many simple things that you would normally take for granted become very challenging when you are responsible for someone’s full time care. Even the smallest things can be hard to accomplish when a person needs twenty-four hour care. Again, I am not complaining, just stating reality. It is truly my honor to help to take care of my momma, even on the most difficult days.

             In the past week, my own health has added to this challenge. Most of the time, I can push through it and just keep going. Most of the time, you would never know that I have a chronic disease, but this past week, it hit me like a brick wall and I was almost down for the count. I had two options, to turn to the Lord and seek His loving, gracious hand for help, or I could have my own private pity party. Well, I’m really ashamed to admit that I went for the pity party. I was pity-partying so hard that I got sick of myself. I’m sure my family probably suffered a bit with me while I wallowed in my party of self-inflicted despair. I was totally pathetic. As a dear friend of mine would say, “Have mercy”.

             What does this have to do with the rich young ruler found in Matthew 19 and Mark 10? A lot, as a matter of fact. Because of our current circumstances, I have found it a bit difficult to steal away time to keep up on my personal Bible study, but finally this morning I knew I had NO choice but to spend some extended time with God in His Word. I could not subject my loved ones to that pathetic me any longer without some solitude with the Lord!

             I pulled out my Bible and read about the young man in Matthew 19. He wanted to know what he must do in order to have eternal life. Jesus reminded him of two very important commandments - to love God and to love others more than himself. He asked the young man to sell all of his possessions and to give them to the needy. The young man thought he had done a pretty good job of keeping all of the commandments. He was not a murderer or a thief after all. But Jesus reminded him that none of us are good enough or righteous enough on our own, none of us keep all of the commandments. That’s why Jesus died on the Cross to save us. Not one of us is perfect like He was. Every one of us has told a lie. Every one of us has worshiped idols -our stuff, our kids, our spouses, our church, ourselves…yes I said ourselves.

             Well, this morning, during my pity party, I turned to God for comfort. I wanted Him to “fix” some things for me. But be careful what you ask for. God shot straight to my heart. He did not promise to fix my circumstances. He didn’t say that He was going to talk to those folks who frustrate me or hurt me. He didn’t say any of that. As I read His Word and studied about that rich young man who just wanted to be saved, I saw a lot of myself in him. I was quickly convicted. I’m the one that needing fixing.

             The young man thought he had it all together. From the world’s perspective he did. He had social status, he had wealth and possessions and he thought he was obeying all of the written commandments. His problem was that he was missing two very important issues. First, he was choosing many other things over God. He loved his wealth more than he loved Jesus. Scripture says that he walked away from Jesus that day “sad”. He chose worldly possessions over the Presence of the living God. Secondly, he cared more about himself than others. He was unwilling to even give up even a small portion of all of his wealth to help his brothers and sisters in need. He cared more about himself than anyone else.

             Well, how does this relate to me? Let me count the ways. I’m going to be very honest here. Hopefully you will not judge me. These last few months have been very hard in too many ways to list here, for all of our family, not just me. But, the bottom line is that this is where God has us right now. It makes me very sad to see my mom suffer. It makes me sad that all of our lives have changed. Sometimes I even become a little resentful because I sometimes feel like we have little help and it all feels unfair. I think all of these feelings are pretty normal and human. But, I’m not a normal human. (No comments please, I know I’m nowhere close to normal!) I am a believer in Jesus Christ and therefore, I must act like one. I, like the rich young man, can tend to get a little selfish. Sometimes I just want a little time to myself, or time with my husband, or sometimes I get so tired that I feel like I’m going crash and burn. Guess what, it’s not really about me is it?

             The truth is, that if God has got me in this season, then He is going to sustain me through it. He has and is going to provide for us and for mom. He is going to meet all of our needs. My job is to love Him, trust Him and act like Him. I am to love Him more than anyone or anything else, even above my own selfish desires. I am to love others more than I love myself. And sometimes that means serving when I’m exhausted or giving up some much needed time with my sweet husband, or even missing church for a Sunday or two. It’s hard for us humans (at least it is for me) to swallow this because most of us are very self-centered. I need to be more Christ-centered and less self-centered. I’m not saying that these other things are not important, because there always needs to be healthy boundaries. I do need to spend time with my family and my husband, and I look forward to making it to church, and I really look forward to a time when I can just run a quick errand without calling in the additional cavalry. But for now, this is where we find ourselves, and I must trust God’s hand in it.

             I want to close with a quote from my BSF lesson. It said this, “Do you find that you prefer lesser things to Jesus and the joy of His presence?” (Bible Study Fellowship, lesson 21, p. 6) That was one of the strongest arrows straight to my heart this morning after studying in the book of Matthew. I do not want to find myself in the shoes of the rich young ruler. I want to treasure Jesus and His Presence more than anything. I want to always love God more than I love myself or anyone else, and I also want to be the kind of person who puts others before myself. After all, that is what I was created for – loving God and loving others. Thankfully, I belong to a very gracious and forgiving God. As soon as I finished reading this morning, I asked Him to forgive me for my selfish pity party and I picked myself up and started all over again, with a fresh perspective on our current circumstances. God is so good and His mercies are new every morning! Amen!