When God Calls Us to Drop the Security Blankets
HELLO FRIENDS,
Nobody likes their security blankets taken from them. I know, I know, you’re too old for actual security blankets. But you and I both have those things that protect us from feeling insecure and unstable.
- Have you ever had the doctor tell you to lay off fried foods and late night snacks?
- Or forgot your emotional support phone while in line at Costco on a Saturday?
- Or pried the video game controller out of your kids hands as a consequence for their actions?
- Have you ever forced yourself to live by a budget and hit the coffee shop limit with a week left in the month?
You can learn a lot about yourself in those moments.
In the final days of Jesus’ life on earth he found himself in a garden praying with a handful of his disciples. He knew it was His time to go to the cross – even if the others were in denial about it.
Then it happened.
Guards enter the garden – swords drawn looking for Jesus. And Jesus, knowing what His Father’s will was, gives Himself up willingly. He could have escaped – he dodged through hysterical crowds before.
But for a brief moment Christ’s willingness to submit to His Father was overshadowed by an impulsive move of Peter. Peter drew a sword and did his best Kill Bill impersonation – slicing the ear off of a soldier in “defense” of Jesus.
And let’s be clear: Peter did not swing the sword because of obedience to Jesus. Jesus told him He was headed for the cross. But Peter could not accept it.
Peter swung the sword because he was trying to protect what God was calling to die. And that death would create a new type of dependence on a God Peter could not see any longer.
This left Peter insecure. This left Peter afraid. This left Peter’s ego exposed because he did not know what to do next.
And Peter, like many of us, seems to have been taught that you need to protect your ego at all costs – when you feel it being threatened then it is time to get big and cut down (literally in his case).
But that teaching was not from Jesus. Jesus taught that you can gain a world full of stuff that can feed your ego and lose your soul in the process. Jesus taught to turn the other cheek. Jesus taught to pick up your cross daily to follow Him. (Mt 16:24-27; Mt 5:38-40)
And while a sword in our hand (or in our mouth) can make us feel in control, it can often crowd out our ability to pick up our crosses. Our hands can only be full of one of those at a time. And sometimes our security blankets need to be thrown out, not protected.
In this time of your life, are you facing threats to your ego?
- Reality checks that you haven’t been the type of spouse or parent Christ called you to be.
- Business dealings that expose that your decision making was far from perfect.
- Situations where your character has been called up short and there’s nowhere left to hide.
- Times when you feel scared about what’s next but don’t know how to express it.
When backed into the corners of life, and our only previous defense was to get big and cut down, we may be called to repent and admit that we need a new defense – a defense that has more crosses and less swords. More ways that allow Christ’s character to shine through us and less ways that exert our perceived level of authority. A greater instinct to let old ways go to pick up new ways of living. Because while the deception of holding a sword may feel more empowering in the moment, it’s drawing no one into God’s Kingdom and keeping Christ from being formed in us.
Have a blessed rest of your week!
Pastor Cris Buck