One of the stock characters of reality television? Someone who has to have everything their way.
The producers of those shows always seem to put people like that in the mix. The more obnoxious, the better. Why?
Because they know that you and I will watch religiously. Waiting for the moment those people dramatically implode (hopefully in a blaze of stupid) when everything doesn’t happen their way. As it always does.
Our fascination with this stuff, is kind of way surprising. Because all of us do the same thing. Just not in as visibly. Here’s what I mean.
All of us struggle with expectations. And it goes something like this.
We get an idea about how things are going to go. How they’re going to work out. But instead of waiting to see if things actually work out that way, we pour concrete around our expectations.
We let our ideas get fixed. To the point that if it doesn’t happen exactly the way we planned, we’re deeply disappointed. Often to the point that we’re not able to receive something good, something that’s better than we imagined.
Causing us to miss out on a lot of good things. Just because they don’t square up with our expectations for how things should be.
This what Jesus is dealing with in today’s Gospel.
You can tell that the Apostles have their ideas of how things should go, their expectations. And they’ve poured concrete around them. How?
Their reaction. When Jesus tells them how it’s really going happen.
Jesus is telling them about something that’s better than they had imagined. They should be really happy right now.
But they’re not. Because they’ve poured concrete around their ideas. To the point that they’re not able to receive something that’s better than they imagined.
They’re missing God’s best. Not because God isn’t giving them His best. But because they’ve closed themselves off from receiving it.
We might laugh at them. But we’re more like them than we want to admit.
As C.S. Lewis put it, “We are…like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
My challenge to you today? Don’t be afraid to take your every problem, your every need to God. He’s told us to do just that, time and again.
But don’t worry about how God should do it.
Take your problems, your needs to God. Leave them to God.
Keep your heart and mind open for God’s answer.
And get ready receive God’s best, in ways that you could never imagine.
