Greetings,
First of all, I wanted to share something personally with you in
this blog. Some of you may know that my
father went home to be with Jesus on December 23rd after a brief
illness.
During the last two months of his life, Dad and I talked about heaven and at one point he said he felt a little guilty because he was looking forward to it. He said,
"Won't it be great! No more pain,
no more sin, no jealousy. Just pure
love from the Lord."
He was looking
forward to seeing family members he hadn't seen, and especially Jesus, and was, well, sort of excited to
go! He did express that he would feel
bad about leaving, but… Frankly, as much as I may have wanted him to stay, I could not
blame him for wanting to leave.
Anyway, one of the things we talked about was
the grace of God and how amazing His love for us is. And I was thinking about that today and it reminded me of an allegory I wrote a few
years ago, and I wanted to share it again with you.
I hope you enjoy it… again.
An
Allegory
"Welcome, Sojourner,"
said the shepherd. "I see you have laid your heavy burden down at the foot
of the cross; How wonderful!"
"Now that you
have received the wonderful gift of salvation, let me show you how to grow. Follow me and I will guide you through your
new responsibilities."
“Responsibilities?” Sojourner
wondered? “Let me show you,” said the
shepherd. With those words, young Sojourner
began a journey into a new life.
As each day
progressed, he was excited to learn from the shepherd and others in the flock how
he was to now live and what things he needed to do to please the Master.
There was so much to learn,
so many new things he needed to accomplish!
The shepherd and the
people of the flock helped him as he began to absorb all the great principles
that were so new to him. It was
explained to him that the shepherd and flock discovered these ideas in a book they
said contained the "Great Standards of Life."
"Oh, there is so
much to comprehend,” he fretted. “How will I ever please my new Master?"
"Follow my
lead," said the shepherd, I have lived by these Great Standards for many
years.
"But how can I
ever live up to such Great Standards."
"The Master’s grace
will help you fulfill the Great Standards. You see, the reason He gives us
grace so we can live up to them. No one can fully carry them out without help,
so we must ask the Master for grace to help us."
"I think I
understand," whispered Sojourner. "You are saying that I should ask
the Master for grace to help me live up to the Great Standards of Life, and in that
way I will someday earn the Master's approval."
“You are a fast
learner!” said the shepherd.
As the days passed,
no one worked harder in the flock than Sojourner. He performed excellently. He
was there with the flock whenever the doors were opened, and he faithfully studied
the parts of the Great Standard he was told about.
He faithfully
accomplished everything the shepherd taught him to do to please the Master. The
desire of his whole heart was to please the One who had taken his heavy burden,
and the way he was taught was to obey the tenets of the Great Standards.
Yet, something was
missing.
Sojourner was
unfulfilled and sort of, well… disappointed. And yet, he could not put
his finger on the reason why.
Even with all the
effort he was putting in he didn't feel he was doing enough.
He was reading the book every day – sometimes for
hours. He was praying and seeking and
asking for help. He went for days without food just to have more time to learn
about the Great Standards. And even then, something was absent in the new life
he had found.
So he decided he must
try harder.
He said to himself, “I
will follow the Great Standards yet closer than before. I will achieve even
more than the shepherd has taught me. Then
I will be satisfied, because then I will know I have pleased the Master."
So, he began to act
upon his newly found fervor.
He passionately lived
his life as close to the Great Standards as humanly possible. He performed even
the minutest details (within reason and common sense) of the standards, and
constantly prayed for more of the Master's grace to live up to even more.
“What more is there
to do and to learn, when will I ever please the Master?”
He also learned about
the "Rules for the Flock," which included suggestions on how the
flock should live differently from the other people of the world so that other
people could see that they were part of a flock, and not just wanderers in the
shadows.
Sojourner also
executed these rules flawlessly.
He out-performed all
of the other members of the flock, and the shepherd began to point to him as
another example for the flock to follow. He spent immeasurable hours reading
the book and would always stumble upon more things to do that he hoped would
please the Master.
He discovered
increasingly more ways to labor, more things to do, which he was sure, would
succeed in gaining the Master's favor. He spent days praying and crying out to
the Master for the ability to please Him more.
Yet, deep in his
heart, Sojourner was unconvinced that he was pleasing the Master.
As the weeks, and
months, and years wore on, Sojourner became frustrated with his new life.
The precepts and the
tenets that he rejoiced to learn at the first, now had become heavy burdens
that weighed his life down. The harder he toiled, the more he seemed to leave
undone.
"Is this all
there is to it – a life of performance-based living and never knowing for sure
if I am pleasing the Master? Even when I obey all of the rules, I never feel
that I have done enough!"
As he sought the
counsel of the shepherd and the older wiser members of the flock, they all
seemed to agree that there must be something wrong in the way that Sojourner
was performing. They assured him that if he had been performing correctly, he
could be sure that he was pleasing the Master.
They suggested to
him, "You simply need to read further about the Great Standards and the
Rules for the Flock. After all, they have been our guide all of these years."
"Sojourner, if
you would just fast and pray more often, these thoughts would not trouble
you."
He could hear the
others whispering, "Perhaps there is disobedience in Sojourner's life, or
worse, a transgression of the Great Standards... "
"Maybe he needs
to go to the cross again and repent.”
“Maybe he just needs
to re-commit.”
“There must be something he is doing wrong or he would not have these thoughts…"
Yet the harder he
tried to perform, the more frustrated he became.
He began to read
other things in the book that suggested he didn't have to perform to gain the
Master's approval, but when he brought those ideas up to the shepherd and
flock, they quickly squelched them.
"Don't talk to
us about sloppy agape and greasy grace!"
"Are you trying to get a license to sin!"
The only thing that
was in Sojourner's heart was to somehow please his Master.