The Curse of My Life

“Jesus looked at him and loved him.” – Mark 10:21

This little phrase captures what I am trying to become.

I want the love that naturally welled up in Jesus when he looked at this young man to be what happens in me when I look at anyone. And I want this to be as observable in me as it apparently was for Jesus by Mark (or Peter, who some think was behind the writing of Mark). And I want this to happen no matter my disposition, condition, or mood. I want it to happen no matter my previous experiences, either with the the person I’m looking at or with others that they remind me of.

Let it be said that whenever I with anyone that “Brian looked at him and loved him.”

I know I’m asking a lot.

I think a lot about becoming like Christ. The idea dominates most of my waking hours.  It’s the goal of my life. It’s the joy of my life. It is the guide of my life, the call of my life, and I might even say it (or more accurately, he) is the source of my life.

There are some who believe it is also the curse of my life.

Think about it…Who can attain to this? How unrealistic is it? How often must I experience failure with such a  high standard?

And when do you get a break from this work? At what moment of which day is there a time when you can “switch off” the work of being like Christ? When I’m with my closest friends? With my wife? With my kids? Alone with God?

I confess I’ve done all those. I’ve “given myself permission” to “be honest about how I feel towards someone” or “about something” and let it all hang out there. There is something liberating about it, to be sure. To have a safe place in which I can show my ugly, offended, small, vengeful, angry, “I-have-rights-and-I-deserve-to-have-them” self. I’ll tell you that on the days that I feel the need to do that, it always turns out best to do it with God. My kids should never have to handle that. My wife can sometimes, but that is understandably confusing for her. I have some friends that have an easier time handling it, mostly because they can go home and don’t have to live with me. So, of all of those options, God seems to be the one that can handle me best, as He remains unchanged and unfazed by my raw, fragmented, unperfected self.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly what I’m needing in those moments. Someone who’s love is unchanged when I am at my worst.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly what I want to be for others…someone who’s love is unchanged when they are their their worst.

And at the end of the day, and whether I realize it at the moment or not, “switching off” from being this doesn’t heal me, and my perceived need to do so has surfaced as an illusion. Taking a vacation from this work of being like Christ (which isn’t really work, but choice) is no vacation at all. It just creates more work (which really is work), and of the self-defeating variety.

Write this down: It is always self-defeating to handle something or someone unlike Christ. Or said another way, maybe better…it is always self-defeating for me to look at anyone and not love them.

So, after plenty of experimentation, witnesses and observers of how I live need to realize that the curse of my life is no curse at all. Since grace abounds in my failures, I need not dwell on or feel guilt about it when I fail to surrender to the spirit of Christ within me. And most encouraging is the fact that I don’t even need to believe that living like Christ is unattainable (1 Jn 2:1 captures both of these trusths).  

And even if following Christ in how he lived and looked and loved was impossible, and even if I was confused and or despairing about it, and even I suffer in my feeble attempts to do so, and even if I bought in to the illusion that I need a break from it…shoot, even if Jesus himself looked at me noticing my extreme difficulty and, desiring to give me an easy out, asked “Do you want to leave?”… I would still stay, answering the way Peter did… “Lord, to whom shall [I] go? You have the words of eternal life. [I] believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (Jn 6:68)

He has it all…

Peace that passes understanding.

The full measure of joy.

Love without condition.

Abounding grace.

Life without end.

Discipleship, The Best Life