|
My Two Cents
by Rev Chuck Behrens
September, 2016
|
Past Articles |
|
If you happen to watch the
Discovery Channel on cable TV, you can end up seeing some real "reality
TV" - including some pretty unusual fare. How about this one, "The Search
for the Giant Squid"? No, that is not an adventure flick - it was a
documentary about one scientist's quest to film what no one had ever
filmed - the giant squid. For the whole hour, the viewer follows this
man's almost lifelong pursuit. You watch as the likely target area is
identified -- as an expensive expedition follows clues that seem to be
leading to this elusive prey--the giant squid. But at the end, you find
out you got sucked into an expedition that ultimately failed to find what
it was looking for.
It's disappointing - a long search, an expensive search, that ends up not
finding what it was look-ing for. For many of us, that could be our life
story. Maybe yours.
It could be that you've been on your quest since you were a teenager.
You've been through a lot of relationships since then - sampled a lot of
experiences - maybe enjoyed a few achievements along the way - even found
a pretty respectable status quo. But you still haven't found what you
hoped you would find by now. In spite of all the places you've looked, you
still can't honestly an-swer the million dollar question, "Why am I here?"
You still haven't found what will give you the love you need and fill that
hole in your heart.
At the peak of her fortune and fame, Chris Evert had 146 tennis
championships behind her and she was married to the man she loved, but she
said this: "We get into a rut. We play tennis, we go to a movie, we watch
TV, but I keep saying, 'John, there has to be more.'" Maybe you know that
feeling. The good news is: there is more. Much more.
In John 4:13-14, which is our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus
is talking with a wom-an who has been searching for a long time. In her
case, her search has taken her into a series of unfulfilling relationships
with men. Since they meet at a well where they have each come for a drink,
Jesus puts his diagnosis of her restlessness in these words: "Whoever
drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I
give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become a
spring of water, welling up to eternal life."
Jesus says that all our earth-sources of love and meaning are wells we
have to keep going back to for more - and they never satisfy for long. But
what He offers is a relationship with Him that puts the source inside us
where it can't be touched, where it will never leave us thirsty again.
Those words "thirsty again" may vividly describe how you have felt after
you've gotten everything that you thought would satisfy the hole in your
heart...but you're "thirsty again."
That "eternal life" Jesus promises did not come cheap. We're searching
because we're away from our Creator - not by His choice, it's ours. We've
done our life our way, not His way. And the only way that wall between Him
and us could come down was for Jesus to pay for the sinning you and I did
- by dying on the cross for them.
Today, Jesus - the One we were made by and made for - is offering to be
the end of our search. He's what we've been looking for your whole lives -
that search ends at His cross. And yet. . .and yet we seem to still
Search. . .hopefully now, with not only different eyes, but a whole other
VIEW!
See you in Church,
Rev. Chuck
|
|
