It's really me

As I write this, Halloween is less than two weeks away. I haven't been trick - or - treating in a rather long time but I have many fond memories of the holiday. Most of those memories focus somehow on chocolate. Chocolate and the making of the costume. Remember, this was a long time ago and the art of the Halloween costume was far more sophisticated back then.

You had to make your costume; there were few really cool costumes to be found in stores. Most of what was sold seemed to look like someone was trying to force a 3D kid into a 2D body. The poor kids who had to buy one looked like so many panels from Mickey Mouse or Archie comic strips.

It took weeks of brainstorming and planning just to get to the construction stage. My mother was an absolute genius at the sewing etc which was required. She made a completely brilliant bat costume for me one year set to my exacting specifications. It was so amazing it became my pajamas for several months. And there was the pumpkin costume, bright orange paint on some sort of heavy paper. It was perfect as long as you were standing...the bus ride took its toll on my pumpkin. I had left the schoolbus bench seats out of my plans.

I looked in the mirror a few weeks ago shortly after shaving my mustache and beard off. The last time I had shaved my beard completely was 25+ years ago. Years! I just stared for a while and the fellow in the mirror stared back. He seemed like a nice enough guy but very worn and tired. I smiled. He grimaced. I stared again, taking in the details, they were familiar. The face made no response to my mapping effort. There was no malice though , it seemed a safe face. It was the face of someone at peace, content within himself.

The Bible isn't really very clear about what we will look like and what we will be able to do in the next part of life. When Jesus visits friends and followers after the Resurrection He isn't quite recognizable. He has to do something they had all done together to set a useful context. He ate breakfast. Jesus was very intentional about eating with His followers. It clarified that He wasn't a ghost but He did have a body.

So then will I!

It will be part of the "I go and prepare a place for you" that Jesus promised. I spent weeks and months planning the most excellent Halloween costume just for me. Jesus is doing the same for me right now! No, not a Halloween costume; He's preparing my next body It will exceed my wildest dreams. It will be the perfect fit. It will be home.

Paul calls it a spiritual body as opposes to a natural body. It will look very much like me. By spiritual and natural I take it to mean that the body I have now is best suited for interaction with what we call the physical world. It has limitations and is corrupted.

My next body should be amazing. We see tantalizing glimpses the physics of next life scattered about the scriptures. If I came back wearing my next life body, I would seem like superman.

But the most glorious part will be the fact that I will never want to sin!

I hope this makes sense...

One of the saddest parts of this illness is having to quit working. I understand the medical reasons but still, its hard not to see your friends.

The directors of the IT department where I had worked for nearly 10 years in the world's most perfect job came by a while back for a visit and I enjoyed the visit immensely. It was good to see them again and they brought news of a "farewell gift" due to arrive some time next week. It would be, or so they said, a robotic chicken! Now THAT'S impressive.

I knew that a chicken of any sort would not cluck it's way to my door, but something would be arriving. My friends said so. I had that hope.

Hope is absolutely essential for a healthy soul. Without hope a person falls into depression, despair, anxiety and feelings of worthlessness. Hope is like light in all that darkness. For someone with cancer, it can be a motivating force to pursue whatever needs to be done for recovery.

It seems to me that there are three sorts of "hope" running about and two are not friendly.
One can be accidental or it can be fraud. It occurs when someone latches onto false information.
"If I continue this diet of leftward rotational crumberry pods and sleep in a yogurt encrusted sweatshirt I'll be ok in 3 weeks".

It happens all the time and probably should be it's own infectious disease. Dieing from false hope. Believing something to be true when it's not.

Just as frequent is the mistaken idea that merely believing something makes it true. People do this all the time. If I want it to be true it will be true.

"Did you make reservations at the restaurant?" she asks.
"No... but there should be an empty table" he reply's.
"With reservations we could have parked in valet parking!"
"There are some alleys a few blocks away, we'll be ok" he mumbles.
"I hope so" she whispers

Trusting in the imaginary, in a wish, is deadly. It's not real hope.

Hope does not depend on what we believe. Hope is built on the trustworthiness of someone or something. I have the hope, I can expect, to find a package delivered to me. My hope is because the Directors said so and they are my friends. Its based personal experience, they are truthful and dependable people.

I have another hope. It is built on the trustworthiness of God. I didn't make this up, it is just one of the truths of the Universe like gravity. The wonder of this hope is that God loves me! Because of that I know that whatever happens with this cancer thing God is waiting in delighted anticipation for me to be with Him.

"The steps of a man are established by the LORD,
And He delights in his way.

When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,
Because the LORD is the One who holds his hand" Psalm 37:23,24

I see dead people

There are zillions of people who believe that after they die everything just stops










This is because they figure a human is just the physical body; what passes for a "soul" is nothing more than electrical impulses.

There are another zillion people who think that the "soul", a different part than the body, gets absorbed into the identityless collection of former souls and the body just stops.








There are a smaller tribe of people who believe that the body and soul are intertwined and a "human" needs both to be human. What happens to them when they die is the crucial question.

Christians believe that the disposition of your parts depends on your choice. One group has your refreshed soul joining your freshly created body living in a place designed to bring you joy by the One who knows you best and the other has the miserable old soul sent ingloriously to the other place.

One group has chosen to delight in the ways of the Eternal High King and His Kingdom, the other has chosen to follow the broken urges of the body despising the King and His ways for the chance to be a sort of Ruler of their own deplorable domain. They are sent off to manage their fiefdom along with everyone else who has made this choice - sent off because there can only be one King and the position is occupied.

Its natural to think that you have plenty of time to study the issue and make your choice. While watching a funeral procession, Jesus gives an analysis of our default condition. "Let the dead bury the dead" He says.

Being dead is our natural condition! Our choice becomes either Follow the King or stay as you are. David, in Psalm 116, writes about looking forward to walking with God in the Land of the Living. It devides up like this then...

There are dead people living their lives as though they were alive, they don't know they're dead and merely existing And there are those who have joined the King and been made alive and will some day walk in the Land of the Living.

Jesus said that Life is knowing God. Life is a measure of one's experiential relationship with God. Its possible to know a bunch of stuff about God and be dead. Choose the Kingdom of the Living, follow the King

dark night of the pillows

One of the stranger phenomenons I've been experiencing is related to the way I use a pile of pillows to find a comfortable position to sleep in. It usually turns out to be a complex construction that would make a pack of beavers jealous. Now here's the strange part. I've actually been loosing sleep because I have been dreaming about secret designs and patterns that have the key to the "Official Pillow Pile Construction" In one dream there was a diagram in a sort of Victorian pen and ink which was printed on the pillow case, and this caused me to actually wake up and try, in the dark with my eyes closed, to locate it; another time it was a Monopoly game board on the pillow.

I woke up muttering my dismay at not having an approved regulation pillow stack. After a week of this goofiness my wife very patiently and wisely suggested that I just use the pillows as pillows and not media for secret messages and just sleep.

The whole process was tiring, frustrating and confusing from analyzing too much. I was trying to sleep by my cleverness and ability to think logically.

I write this partly because I've been reading through the classic book "Dark Night of the Soul". It describes a condition Christians can find themselves in where their communication with God is disrupted or even broken.

One occasion which produces this silence from God is described this way. In Hosea 5:15-6:3 we see God responding to a lifestyle of ignoring Him and His ways. God breaks the communication and effectively hides Himself.

"I will go away and return to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me."

"Come, let us return to the Lord, for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him."

"So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord."

Everything seems dark and despairing. Nothing seems right no matter how we struggle to know Him.

If God seems missing or far away it might be time for you to repent and run; run like crazy back to God and He will restore the relationship!

But there are times when you haven't been all that depraved. You've read your Bible faithfully, gone to two Bible studies a week, had long and serious prayer times and yet God remains a mystery.

The reputable Christian Mystics remind us that it is Gods way to hide from His people on occasion; Especially the genuinely spiritually mature. Whats up with that?

The reason is that although God has given us a mind to vigorously use to know Him, there are truths unknowable. A strong relationship between two people depends on knowing each other for having spent time with each other learning the otherwise unknowable about them.

C S Lewis uses a different metaphor. He discusses the difference between someone who has carefully studied a map of an area of the world. Your neighborhood for example. He might be able to tell you the relative locations of your house and the convenience store. But who really knows the area the map reader or you. You live there, have seen the sights, possibly know the neighbors.

Put it this way - who would you want as a guide to Yosemite National Park... a map expert who has never been there or someone who vacations there every summer. Of course you want the person who has stood in the valley and seen Half Dome or El Capitan or Yosemite falls. The one who has smelled the smells and seen the sights and walked the trails.

God desires to have a relationship based on personal interaction, not mutual study. He does not want to be a god of paper and ink found in books.

At the end of the story of Job, after Job endures a great many troubles, Job addresses God and says, more or less, "Before I had heard about you, now I know you."

The Dark Night of the Soul is dark because God wants us to know Him because we have been told by Him. He wants our hearts to be filled with Joy because He is here. We share secrets. He will give us each a new name that only He knows. We sit and stare quietly at Him in His presence because He is delighted we are there!

The Dark Night of the Soul is hard; it's confusing, it can be discouraging, it goes against our nature to want to have reasoned it out ourselves. It is the way to Him for anyone, there is no one who cannot simple respond in joyous love and wonder. Think of a newborn baby's responses to familiar faces. It is eternal life.

spitless

This chemo stuff has some amusing and frequently annoying side effects. I am spitless for example. I have no saliva and the result is that eating food, that often looks really tasty, is like chewing chalk. I go through a bunch of water just to finish a meal.

But I am generally so minimally affected that sometimes I forget anything is wrong. Under the observance of a doctor this is not a problem since I have regular fix it sessions to go to. Before the cancer was recognized, however, it had time to run amok in my body causing serious problems.

Had I been aware of what to look for, the tracks of its having been there, I might have taken corrective action much sooner. The prognosis would be less grim. The problem, of course, is that it all happened so slowly. If, for example I was meandering about the house and my arm just fell off, I would very likely call someone for help. But if instead a eight inch blob of tissue inside my body suddenly becomes an eight inch blob of cancer I very likely wouldn't notice. The long term consequences to me would be similar a major medical problem.

Cancer is like that. It does what it does and suddenly your about to die. Most of the time you've thought nothing was wrong or worse yet you just got used to the pain and called it normal.

Sin is like that too. We do what we do and suddenly our souls are effectively dead. Most of the time we think nothing is really wrong with that lifestyle or worse we just get used to the pain in our soul and call it normal.

Sin is the bigger problem. Sin will affect us all our lives; cancer only till we die. Faulty lifestyles may continue to afflict us, to control us, after we die in the second part of life.

If thinking about these things makes you scared spitless but everything else seems just fine you need to beware, take some time for solitude, time to do a self examination, time to visit the one who can heal us body and soul.

solitude

My wife got me an iPod for my birthday! They are wonderful tools; I have a bunch of songs, some books (I've been listening to "The Dark Night of the Soul"), and even movies!

This IPod is perfect for listening to while I wait for the 3 hours of IV chemo drips to finish. I can be mentally and spiritually refreshed while sitting still in a chair; just me and John of the Cross.

There are drawbacks to this quasi solitude. The obvious one is that while I am listening to John of the Cross I am not necessarily interacting with my world. A pair of earphones plugged into overly loud music is an easy way to seclude myself.

Although it would be a fascinating study to examine the impact of iPod isolation on society, that is not what I intend to explore. One of the reasons the isolation phenomena is so widespread is, I think, that it conveniently remedies the unfortunate fear of one of humankind's most valuable activities.

Being truly alone, in solitude is a frightening event for most people. I am not thinking, by the way, of this solitude occurring in the middle of the Gobi desert or the Alaskan interior. I am pondering being alone at home or at the grocery store etc. Its so compellingly dreadful that people will fill up their solitude with noise (enter the iPod) or television or reading or the internet... you get the idea.

The source of this fear of being alone is the expectation of what, or who, might show up to break the solitude. Like a good Hitchcock movie, this unseen but anticipated dread is lurking around every corner. The two most terrifying horrors are oneself and God.

The problem is you don't really know what you might discover about yourself in the harsh light of solitude. Chances are that it does not reconcile with your imagined self. Thus the distractions of noise and activity to scare away the terrors.

These times of solitude are really a normal part of God's structure of the universe so trying to avoid them or mask them out is akin to trying to postpone sunrise. The Mosaic law included a reminder of this regular time of solitude in the Sabbath.

By the way, when I refer to a time of solitude I don't mean a time of reading the scriptures and prayer or even of meditation. Don't get me wrong, those activities are vital to our well being. But they are times we have set aside. All those useful disciplines start with an effort on our part...

I am referring to the quiet times that God himself schedules into our lives. The mystics called it a time of contemplation as opposed to a time of meditation. When we meditate, we use our minds to study and ponder. In contemplation God instructs us. He speaks to our soul to our mind our emotions. He tells us what He wants us to know just at the time we need it. These God initiated times of solitude be they 5 minutes or 5 months are probably the most significant in our lives if we respond to Him with a eager listening soul. It is when we are to "be still and know that I am God".

God knows how greatly we need to shut up, sit down and listen so he sets apart times for that to happen. Times of solitude.

"When you said to me 'Seek my face' my heart said to you 'Your face, oh Lord, I shall seek' " Psalm 27:8

lets make a deal

One of the common ploys we humans try when we relize the end of this life is comming sooner rather than later is to start the process of negotiation. We are apparently chronic wheeler-dealers, and the end of life is not the only occasion we prayerfully bring our bargining skills.

Once during a terminal crisis with my business I was in an extended negotiation with God on how He was supposed to handle the situation. I clearly recall offering a sort of pious package to God. I would be content with whatever circumstances came along (subject to modification at a later date) and God would guarantee food clothing and shelter. I thought I was pretty noble.

Immediately God reminded me of the words of Jesus -

"Do not worry then, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear for clothing? For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Gospel of Matthew 6:31-34

God was telling me basically - "I already promised you those very things now lets talk about the real issues" He was continuously faithful and generous in resolving the circumstances.

As I write this the anniversary of D day is just over. War is famous as a venue for the "lets make a deal" prayer. The practiced prayers and complete newbies decide that if nothing else will work maybe God might be enticed to come to my aid. Bargaining with God almost seems like an automatic response to adversity.

Its not just adversity that brings out this heavenly haggling; the opportunity for supernaturally sponsored success is a tempting scenario for a mutually convenient covenant. There are many "pious" people from virtually every major (and most minor) religious belief who in essence are counting on the notion that "if I do these things and don't do those things, you God will be obligated to grant me whatever sort of afterlife that will please me".

There are three problems, at the very least, with trying to bargain with God. The first is that God cannot be obligated by a mere human. No one can say to God "You failed". The second is that it is greatly presumptuous to suppose that God would bind Himself to an agreement He did not create. No one can say to God "here's what we're going to do; you might want to take notes". The third is that it is foolish to assume that we have anything of value to offer to God.

Actually I should modify that last thought. We do have a few things to offer to God but they are not things that can be traded away. The truth is that there isn't really anything that is "Ours" to give away. However, I can offer God my attention. God desires to speak with us but we so seldom pay any attention

We can offer God our loyalty. We are either His or we aren't. We can offer God a sense of respect and awe. We can live each day filled with wonder.

If we do we will undertake the exact opposite of "lets make a deal". We will offer God what already belongs to Him and which He has given to us so that we might choose to willingly give back to Him.

echo

I've noticed that I am thinking more frequently about the things I used to do. Playing volleyball for example is an activity I miss; and riding my bike around the neighborhood. This reverie is all very nostalgic which is good. Looking through the memories of the days of yore reliving some old adventure or a long lost daily routine can be just the thing to revive a sagging spirit; especially if it involved other people.

A caution though; The sense of loss of people and things that went before can produce an unhealthy sort of nostalgia filled with longings which cannot ever be filled. This wishing that those days were back and would always stay just this way is a dreadful disease of the soul. Living in the past leaves your soul thin, almost transparent, because the context, that entire universe of the past does not exist. You can remember it but don't try and live there. On a side note, the folks who choose Hell will probably have to live in the past, haunted by their memories, since they have no future to speak of!

There is a goodhearted respectable version of the desire for things to stay the way they are. It typically has a beneficent nobility about it born out of the realities of the Kingdom of God and the hope of the new birth. It acknowledges the joys and sorrows of the past and then turns to blissfully contemplate the present and the future. We all have those moments when everything is just right and we think "ahh, if only...". Peter the Apostle did. He had just witnessed the event called the Transfiguration. In his enthusiasm

Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Matthew 17:4
Noble Peter wants his experience to never change and even wants to provide a way for others to share the wonder. Lets build an all year camp and conference ground! Of course Jesus goes back down the mountain. He has people who need Him. Staying at Peter's conference center is not in the plan.

We may wrestle with this "need" for things to stay the same. After all if nothing changes we can have a sense of stability. We know what to do. We are static people. God, on the other hand, seems to be dynamic. He IS still the creator, its His nature to create. Creation is making something new.

Living in the context of God constantly bringing new adventures into my life requires a confidence in the idea that He has plans for me and they are for good, regardless of how odd or unexpected or difficult the new situation might be.

God loves me, for reasons I cannot comprehend. Parkinsons and then cancer have been unexpected new paths in my journey. They are the sort of gift that you open, blink, stare, blink again and then blurt out "thank you ... um ... what is it?" And six months later you wonder how you got along without it. I haven't quite figured out the why for this new path I'm following but I am expecting to see yet more of God's wonderous imagination.

oh no, its one of those parties!

Have you ever been to one of those parties? The kind where you just don't fit. You don't know anyone. You're dressed conspicuously differently than everyone. They all speak a different culture saying things like "bilateral defraculator" or "isn't Vlad so veerrry skaze tonite?"

Why am I going on and on about this topic? Am I just trying to be ultra skaze? This really does tie into my overall theme "So, I only have a short time to live"

It struck me a while back that someone could be whisked off to heaven only to discover that he doesn't really like the place. He arrived at the wrong party and doesn't fit in. Does this idea surprise you?

Life is full of activities or tastes that require intentionality on my part to enjoy. Skiing, for example, is not a built-in skill but once learned and practiced it becomes delightful. Appreciating coffee is like that too.

Consider the blending of multiple activities and acquired tastes into what we will call a lifestyle. Individual activities like schussing down a mountain slope while guzzling a cup of Costa Rica's best coffee are only two of the bundle that makes the "Joe skier" lifestyle. There are many lifestyles, some more beneficial to personal health than others. Some seem to leave no impact at all on society.

There are Kingdom lifestyles in practice today which will be gloriously rampant in Heaven. There are lifestyles from this life which won't exist in the Kingdom of God.

1Corinthians 5 gives a partial list

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God."

Our hypothetical man never cultivated an appreciation for the attitudes and activities intrinsic to Heaven. He never got the point of being patient, for example, or why it wasn't cool to have hidden agendas with the people around him.

"But", you might counter, "won't we have a really long time to make corrections?" An excellent reply; yes we presumably will. And there are bunches of verses that tell us we will be changed and will be like Christ.

I think the part of the dynamic at work is that in this part of life we have a physical body which has pre-installed genetic responses to many situations we encounter in life. Newborn babies have a whole set of behaviors and responses that automatically start running at birth. The ability or inability of ones body to react properly to alcohol can cause a inebriate lifestyle in one family and teetotalers in another. They are inherited from our parents and grandparents. This, I think, is how the sins of the father can be passed on to successive generations.

Notice an important difference. Some, like the newborn, cannot be changed. I could not, for example, wake up some morning and decide to be blond. Wanting to be a blond for the day won't change my hair. Some cannot be changed but can be accomodated. If I spend too much time in the sun, I turn very red. However, I don't have to soak up all that sunshine. I can choose to avoid it, the essence of Old Testament teaching. If you have this scenario avoid these familiar old responses, you can do it, and try these instead.

Exciting scientific study suggests that much of our genetic wiring can be restructured. Its designed that way. Much of our brains can be rebuilt. We learn, we imagine we literally change our minds.

God says "do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" But, all the time in the universe may not be enough to change certain habits. And here is where it gets interesting...

In this part of life my body works against me so-to-speak when I am faced with a scenario and response. My built-in response might be one warped choice; my soul might be cheering for the Kingdom reply. The Holy Spirit might be urging a Kingdom choice. My will makes the choice. But I will, in the next life, have an "adapted for the Spirit and the Kingdom" new body. My bodies natural responses will now be the Kingdom way. It will work in harmony with my souls Kingdom choices. It will be easy to be patient. It will be difficult to lie. It will on the other hand be really hard to be a drunk. Responding as a whole person at that time will fill me with joy. Trying to revive an old lifestyle will find no support and leave me cold and empty.

If I spend this part of my life tuning my soul to my old bodies patterns, I'll be missing that support in Heaven. It will always be confusing and miserable.

One more thought... There are times in a persons life when certain achievements are optimal. Being a first class international soccer goalie happens between ages 30-40. Learning to speak language comes easiest as an infant. Growing a head only seems to work as a fetus.

Are there lifestyles best learned and cultivated in this portion of life? I suspect so. Is now a good time to align with the Kingdom? I am certain it is.

but why me?

I mentioned in a previous post that learning you have a terminal disease gives you a new perspective on life, the universe and everything. One of the first questions to present itself was "why me?" The why me question is a serious one.

The question is serious because it comes packed with faulty implications and assumptions. The most toxic implication is that somehow God is responsible for bungling my life. He has interfered and made a mess of things. The most deceptive assumption is that my basic rights have been neglected or abused.

Its a natural point of view, for Americans at least, to value the statements in the Declaration of Independence that all mankind has basic rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the last 50 years we have modified our perception of what this to mean a long and healthy life, freedom to do whatever we want, and material success. And we deserve it and are entitled to it.

When things go other than as I expected, a financial difficulty or a serious illness for example I can become disgruntled with God or antagonistic toward those people around me or I can despair. Despair is sort of the quicksand of the soul. Slip into it and you may be caught for months at a time. The third chapter of Lamentations describes someone who sounds like he has been snared by despair.

"I am the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
He has driven me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
Surely against me He has turned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away,
He has broken my bones.
He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.
In dark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.
He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my chain heavy.
Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer."

His perception of things is that everything is hopeless..."Why me?"
Fortunately for him, he rejects the despair option and comes to His senses.

"This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul,
'Therefore I have hope in Him.'
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the LORD."

When I want to say "Why me?" what I really need to do is recall how God has treated me in the past. (What, you haven't been paying attention to God's goodness?! Its time to start). The odd thing about this approach is that I inevitably find myself thinking along these lines

"Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both good and ill go forth?
Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?
Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the LORD.
We lift up our heart and hands
Toward God in heaven;"

in other words - "Why me? Why not me? After all, what have I done to deserve anything from God?"

And I start to understand what Paul meant when he claimed he had become content with whatever God brought along for the day.

This is the day the Lord has made...and it is full of surprises, new kindness to me...

"The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness."

the calling of Matthew

The Calling of Matthew by Caravaggio is one of my favorite paintings. It captures the very core of Christianity.

The record of the historical event as told by Matthew simply states that Jesus came to Matthew and said "Follow ME!"

Matthew left all that he had and followed Jesus. It would have been a considerable fortune. Matthew collected taxes for Rome and could charge whatever he wanted, with the military backing of Rome.

In the painting Matthew, the fellow at center table pointing to himself, is busy taking the cash of some dejected commoner. He still has the coins in hand.

Jesus invades this event, coming right into Matthews house or office. He hadn't been invited, you can tell from the confused and concerned expression on Matthews face. Notice that Matthew is the only one aware of the drama unfolding between himself and Jesus. And he rightly recognizes that the focus of Jesus attention is only him. This man, the one with the commanding presence, has hunted and found Matthew.

What is this core of Christianity I referred to earlier? Jesus seeks us even if we don't seek Him. It is absolutely critical to have the correct response. Jesus is not negotiating with Matthew. Jesus isn't asking for suggestions on how best Matthew will partner with Him. We have nothing of interest to Jesus except our attention.

The call is "Follow Me". Matthew is not being requested to align his vast wealth with the Jesus cause. He is not needed for his charm or orginational expertice or his infectious bubbly personality. Matthew is not being asked to contribute anything. In the Gospel accounts he leaves it all behind.

It is the same for me as I near the conclusion of this chapter of my life. I are not being asked to join an organization or subscribe to a specific set of beliefs or behaviors. Jesus is not pleading or making offers, He is the King and as such has come to claim what is rightfully His. Simply put, He
commands us to see for ourselves who He is.

This is important, notice in the painting, Jesus calls us into shadows and darkness. He does not promise success or health, friendship or fame. The only certainty in the darkness He calls me into is Himself. He calls me to follow Him because Jesus intends to walk with me. He will be there in the uncertainty asking only that I trust Him and follow.

One last look at the painting. Jesus calls me into the shadows but He has come from the Light behind Him. His kingdom. It is my true home.