“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)
February 28, 2004. That is a date that will hold eternal significance for me. Seven years ago on February 28th God finally busted down my stubborn wall of indifference and got a grip on my heart. On that day I was changed forever. But I digress......
I was raised in a religious system. I knew who Jesus was and I performed all of the sacraments required of me as a youth. I went to church on the big, important holidays and I even had my own copy of the Bible (King James Translation). I had all of this knowledge but I never used it. I was a product of this world and only the latest and the greatest “stuff” would appease me and make me happy. Truth is, I might have considered myself happy on occasion but I never truly had any joy or peace.
I spent my youth (as most do) in vain pursuit of the next thing that would make me happy; the next hot girlfriend, the next cool vehicle, the next degree, the next job/career, the next apartment/townhome/house, the next hobby......all in vain. Solomon put it better than I ever could in Ecclesiastes 2:11 when he said, “But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless-like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.” What Solomon is saying is that security and self-worth can only be found in the love of God and not in these temporary things. At that point in my life though, I knew none of that.
You see I tried real hard to get ahead and my parents did everything in their power to help me succeed but I was never happy where I was at any particular time. I always felt that I wasn’t going to measure up to the image of who the world thought I should be unless I had or did that “next great thing”. I drove myself to succeed and I worked my tail off to earn any respect from those around me. I worked so hard at my new career straight out of college that I woke up one day and found that my young, new wife was tired of being married to a ghost that was never around and that she had found what she needed somewhere else. Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing wrong with working hard. My point in all of this is that no matter how hard I worked, no matter how good I became at what I wanted to do, I was never fulfilled. The world (Satan) does a great job at pushing the lie that you need the next big thing in order to be happy in our face and I bought it hook, line, and sinker. But along with that purchase I also bought loneliness and frustration as I found myself alone and still searching for the next thing to make me happy.
At this point in my life my search led me to the Far East. I studied several martial arts and Asian philosophies like Zen Buddhism and Taoism in an effort to find some sort of peace inside of me. I worked hard at understanding these strange precepts I was reading about and even harder at the physical discipline. I found myself going to the doctor quite frequently with a broken this, a strained or sprained that, or a bruised something-or-other. My doctor recommended I do something non-contact but I stubbornly refused. I was spending many hours a week paying someone to beat me up and then trying to work 50-60 hours a week at my burgeoning career. At the end of the day I was closing my eyes trying to meditate on inner peace but I was too beat up, sore, and tired and I would fall into a fitful sleep. This certainly wasn’t bringing me any peace now was it?
Fast forward to 2004 and I was still in search of this peace and happiness but I was looking at different ways to find it. I now had a new home that I could call my own, a brand new sports car, a second wife and a second career. I looked to those things to measure my self worth and I threw myself into them with reckless abandon. I was again working 50-60 hours a week and exhausting myself trying to measure up to some foolish standard that I still don’t know from whence it came. I was hating my job and I was losing my wife as well.
There was a new movie out at the time that was directed by Mel Gibson; The Passion of the Christ. I remember clearly that there was a lot of talk about this movie and the controversy it stirred up but I had no real desire to either see it or not see it. I even remember someone asking me if I was going to see it and I replied, “Maybe, maybe not”. I also remember a coworker handing me a pamphlet stating that his church was going to be leading a discussion on the movie some evening. That pamphlet sparked my interest and that coworker became a dear friend who walked side-by-side with me during my early walk of faith. I thank God for that man.
On Sunday, February 28th, 2004 my wife, a friend of ours, and myself went to see the movie. I went in to the Cine Capri as a tired and frustrated product of my environment. I came out of that movie theater knowing that I was a child of God, bought and paid for with a heavy, heavy price. Like I said earlier, I knew Jesus. I used to look at the beautiful stained glass representations of Him and wonderful pictures of Him holding a little lamb on His shoulders with a pleasant smile on His face. I never knew this Jesus though!! I always knew he died for my sins but I had never seen it reproduced in such a visceral fashion. Every lash of that whip onto my Savior’s flesh made me shudder. Every look of anguish on the face of His mother broke my heart. Every staggering step he made on His way to Calvary made my heart miss a beat and when he willingly laid down his ripped and bruised body onto the cross for the soldiers to nail him to, tears streamed down my face. I was awestruck. I was dumbfounded. I was in love.
I knew at that moment that I could not live my life the same as I had been. I knew I had to change. I knew that up until that moment I was “chasing the wind” and the only true source of joy and fulfillment was found in Jesus. I knew that the same God that would go to such great lengths to save me would never leave me or forsake me, He would never give up on me, betray me, or lead me astray. I knew then what I had been missing for the previous 34 years of my life......a relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
On that day I began my walk of faith, my imperfect walk with my perfect God. My life has not been the same since. I have been through trials that would have surely broken me before 2-28-04. I have messed up, fallen down, and had times of physical and mental stress. I have had my family ripped apart and my heart broken. I’ve become weary and I have had to carry heavy burdens but you know what? The rest that Jesus promises is love, healing, and peace with God. A relationship with Him has changed all the meaningless toil into spiritual productivity and purpose. I am at peace. My soul is at rest. I can rest in the fact that my eternal security is sure and that makes all the difference in this world and the next.
Think about what you consider worthwhile-where you place your time, energy, and money. Will you one day look back and decide that you, too, were “chasing the wind”? Take it from me, don’t chase the wind. Chase Jesus.
Happy Anniversary Jesus! Thank You for the best gift ever......Yourself.
Next week we will continue our discussion on change in 2011. God bless!
