To Freedom - overcoming hurdles and hardships

THE WORD IN LENT - Wednesday, Second Week

February 28, 2024 - Jeremiah 18: 18-20; Matthew 20: 17-28

Through the desert God leads us to freedom, and that way to freedom can never be without problems and difficulties. The way to freedom, the Word today instructs us, can have two varied kinds of difficulties: the first of its kind is external hurdles.

Just as a journey through the desert can face with hurdles on the way - boulders, sand dunes and so on - so too, our journey to freedom can have hurdles that are from around. Today we see Jeremiah complaining to God about it and Jesus mentioning it as a matter of fact. It is particularly intriguing how Jesus just mentions it and passes by, that he will be handed over to the elders and the leaders and they would kill him. He just passes by it saying, I will be killed and I will rise! It is a powerful message in its simplicity - you will have hurdles, but you can and you will overcome them - do not fear. 

What Jesus warns more against, than these external hurdles, is the second kind of problems: the internal hardships. He says these are much more dangerous, that can take away your freedom, and take you away from the Truth. This is something that is characteristic of Jesus, we know that. He always concentrates and draws our attention to "the within", the internal forum, what comes from within, more than what can affect one from the outside. Overcoming this type of hardships requires a lot of what we have been reflecting on in the past two days - the need for self-examination and the importance of discernment.

One who humbles shall be exalted and one who exalts oneself will be humbled; what makes one impure is that which comes from within and not what enters from outside; true Reign mindset is seeking to serve and not seeking to be served - these are clearly of the internal forum! Who can guarantee the sincerity and integrity about such dispositions, except the person himself or herself? That is why the indispensable place of self-examination or self-verification, without which even the person proper would not know really what one is going through. 

In self-examination leading to the realization of what cannot co-exist with a life in Christ, and in the discernment of ways and steps in which one can act on these areas which need change, the Lord walks with us and enlightens us with the singular light of love, a love that does not hesistate to lay down even one's life, because it is a love that seeks not to be served, but to serve the other in every way possible!