Bacon

Bedtime stories are a favorite of my son and I.  Recently I began to tell the story of God's people(starting with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat) and have recently arrived at the ministry of Jesus.  Last night we talked about the story from Matthew 8:

²⁸ When He arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met Him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. ²⁹ “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”

³⁰ Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. ³¹ The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”

³² He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. ³³ Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. ³⁴ Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they pleaded with Him to leave their region.

At the conclusion of the story I was asking my son about the townspeople wanting Jesus to leave.  Even though what Jesus had done had freed the people from a great problem, they didn't like the results.  My son wisely responded, "Well, where are they supposed to get bacon now??"

I don't think my son was necessarily siding with the townspeople's rejection of Jesus, but it does illustrate an important point....

Do you ever browse through facebook?  You probably notice something that is becoming more and more common:  Complaining, moaning, drama posts, etc.  It seems like half the people in my feed are ever more increasingly unhappy with the status of their current life.  But do you know what I have learned about many of these same people?  They have no intention of making any changes, or sacrificing anything that they want.

We want to do whatever it is we want to do, but we want the world(and God) to make it all work out in our subjective favor.  We want to be thinner while still eating junk food.  We want to be happier, while still making the same emotionally and mentally poor relationship and life choices.  We want to be richer, while still being financially irresponsible.

There is a refusal to ever acknowledge that what we want may come with a cost.  The townspeople were being completely terrorized by the demoniac.  Surely they wanted the problem resolved.  But no one had apparently made any sort of effort.  They just ignored the problem.  It tells us no one even went that way at all.  So Jesus came in and solved their problem.  And, even more beautifully, freed the oppressed man from what he was experiencing.

What was their response?  Was it, "thank you thank you thank you!!!"?  Nope.  It was, "Can you please leave?"

Look at your own life.  As you evaluate the degree to which you have joy, hope, peace, happiness, etc, are you content?  Or, are you struggling right now?  Then look at Christ's claims on your life, and God's revealed truth about who we are, and what we are called to.  Are you truly aligned with it?  I would argue that you are not.

As long as we live unwilling to come to Jesus, even if it costs us something, then we too will have a demoniac type effect in areas of our life that we will feel shut off from.  Bacon is great, but freedom and hope is better.

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