No Blurred Lines Allowed
Remember when we were kids in school, with paper and pencil in hand, we tackled the big problems. For me, the biggest problems were found in mathematics. I’d try. Goodness knows how I tried. But inevitably my math homework looked faded and blurred, with a sort of soot-grey coloring found over the entire page. For one of my best friends, mathematics was clean, sure, simple, and reliable. She actually said, “Math is amazing Donna, because there is always one clear, reliable answer — the lines of life are never blurred in math.” My right eye still twitches a bit when I try and “do” mathematics, and yet I know she was and is correct. You can’t play around with math and come up with a subjective, bent, easier answer. There is one correct solution — every time. We might use different algorithms to get to that correct answer, but there is only ONE RIGHT ANSWER.
I reflect on this with you, in this writing, during the week before Easter. Christ followers, Christians, bring our attention and focus more closely on the reality of what our Jesus endured for our sake… we know He did it for us. For you. For me. For any who would be willing to believe and accept Him as Savior. For Jesus, according to scriptures (Matthew 26-28, Mark 11-16, Luke 19-24, John 13-21), the line of sacrifice was eminently clear.
There was ONE WAY, and He was to make that way.
How ominous it is to meditate on the weight Jesus carried on His shoulders and in His heart. The emotional and spiritual pressure was so intense, we read that the night before his arrest, which would lead to his crucifixion, he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane asking God if there was any other way, asking if this cup of suffering could be taken from Him. (Oh the honesty in this humanness of Jesus.) And yet He knew what was needed. After much anguish in prayer, Christ ends His petition with words of surrender and obedience, “…not my will, but your will…”. (Luke 22:42) After this prayer of submission to the Father, Luke shares that an angel from heaven came to Jesus and strengthened him. Yet, even with an angel at his side, he still prayed in anguish — bloody sweat. The angel did not stop the trouble, he did not change Christ’s circumstances, he could not remove the pain that was to come — but the angel strengthened Jesus to be able to endure. The angel alleviated aloneness in the olive grove of Gethsemane.
Have you ever felt that strengthening, flowing down from Heaven to you, when the challenge in front of you didn’t change, but you are reminded that you are not alone, GOD is with you? The Holy of Holies dwells inside the temple of you and you know that He has come near, commanding the angel armies on your behalf. It’s what our Father does. He doesn’t fluff our pillow — oh no — He strengthens us for the conquest.
Our God does not blur the lines. He defines them and makes them clear. He does this for us. So we will know. “This is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)
One of the greatest challenges we face in the world is the blurring of lines. The world around us will pull out its huge eraser and try to scrub away THE ANSWER. The world is searching for a new “algorithm” that is easier or more comfortable or more in line with its own desires and cravings. Oh but dear ones — there is ONE way, ONE truth, and ONE life (John 14:6). And this ONE answer is the answer. There is no other correct answer.
I go back to the Garden over and over again in my heart and mind when I see others struggling to change the truth and blur the lines. I imagine Jesus praying in anguish — oh God forgive us when we only imagine our Jesus as poised, polished, and perfect in his humanness. He was real and honest. He felt more because He knew more. He wept and prayed and asked for another way…but the Father could give no other way.
Truth is truth and there is only One way.
What the Father could give was a strengthening to endure the path ahead. For God knew the only way for you and me to make it through this blurred up confusing battlefield — was for Jesus to make it through the scourging, the betrayal, the accusations, the cross, and the sacrificial death. Only when Jesus bravely did His part, would we be able to find our One true way to the Father.
If our Jesus was willing to be strengthened by an angel and press on to the One Way — who am I to cringe and shrink back, pout and complain — when a hard challenge comes my way and I must choose. Am I going to follow the One who gave His life for me and face the challenge ahead being guided by the Truth? Or am I going to blur the lines, leaving smudge marks all over my life, insist that there is “this other way” that works, try and convince others of my new algorithm, and turn my paper in to be graded? Oh dear God.
Cultures will turn in their “homework paper” so covered in smudged out eraser marks, sometimes with holes worn in the paper from their many erasings and re-writings. Family lines will stand boldly together to turn in their homework willing to declare that “we’ve decided this is the answer”. But no amount of declaring an untruth will ever make it become a truth.
Social pressures and personal preferences will rub holes all in their homework paper and then blame the eraser, the teacher, the faulty paper, or the problem — refusing to take responsibility for their rebellion.
Religious leaders (like the Pharisees of Christ’s day) will try and demand, enforce, dominate, and intimidate — like a mean teacher smacking hands with sticks — as if their dominant attitude positions them to blur the answer and rewrite the way. They ignore that Jesus said — LOVE.
The ignorant will blur the lines too — but their’s is from lack of knowing. They haven’t learned yet. But the only difference between ignorance and knowledge is to have been given the information accurately, and be willing to receive.
People who blur the lines give information inaccurately. God help. Jesus the Son asked God the Father if there could be another way. No other good way was given to Him. Jesus the Son surrendered His life for the ONE GOOD WAY. And we, today, still live in the flow of that surrendering. Jesus did not take out a holy eraser to change the correct way. He complied, with much anguish, and the One good way was accomplished.
I will never forget how smudged up my trigonometry homework looked when I’d walk into Mrs. Poss’s class. My friend’s was crisp, clean, and accurate. I knew there was something wrong with my trig-thinking. Guess what Mrs. Poss did? She asked me one question, “Donna, do you want to learn how to do trigonometry?” With a sincere heart I responded, “Yes mam, I do, but I actually don’t think it’s possible with my brain.” She then moved my chair to sit at a shared desk with Michelle, my wonderfully mathematically minded friend. Then Mrs. Poss said, “Michelle knows how to help you learn the ways of trigonometry. Watch everything she does and follow her lead.” I did. I asked lots of questions and she could answer them. I didn’t argue with her, dispute her reasoning, or complain that it didn’t make sense to me. I complied. I listened. I learned. And I actually began to understand what had seemed impossible to my brain. I made a B in high school trigonometry (a modern day miracle if ever there’s been one.) There was only one way in that math class. I had to choose. Either I would comply and learn that way or I would fail. I chose carefully.
LIFE and ETERNITY have no comparison to my tiny math class in high school — however a simple, child-like faith can open our eyes to see what can be learned in this illustration.
Mrs. Poss asked me, “donna, do you want to learn…”
God asks us, “Do you want to learn My way and LIVE?”
No other algorithms or excuses will work.
There is ONE WAY, and there was one “man” who was willing to suffer and die so we could pray, believe and receive this One good Way — that means we’ve been invited to scoot our chair up beside Him, sit at His table, and learn from Him.
The world will blur every line.
With God there is no blurring of lines.
There is One Way, One Truth, and One Life — it is Jesus.
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Happy Easter from the Reach for More Team! May you have a blessed Easter as we remember the love God has for us and keep reaching for more of Jesus!
