2

2.
Sometimes it is absolutely necessary that we get out of the way of ourselves. Yes I meant to say it exactly like that. Yes it makes perfect sense. Yes I know it isn’t easy.

There is this “Thing” we are running after. Despite what many want to call it: dreams, hope, love, faith, happiness, wealth, fame, or even just a simple kiss; what we are really running after is fulfillment.

I know it isn’t a heavy idea, except… it actually is.

Not in idea maybe, but rather in substance. In substance it takes on a whole new character and taste. Its look even changes and what we thought it was—once getting to that place—is not at all what we imagined. Many people think money will solve all the problems of the world; it really won’t. Africa has proved that.

Fulfillment looks like a billion different things to a billion different people but to every one of those billion the biggest obstacle is the face they see in the mirror, or pond, or passing glass window while strolling downtown. The reasons for it are plenty obvious and plenty flashy.

We have this nature in us that fights for itself. It is selfish and seeks its own gain. On the surface that might not look so bad; every one looking out for themselves, to protect what they have, but the truth is this is the complete opposite of love.

In that world everyone gets screwed.

We want to be happy; I think most people in their sane mind want that, but sometimes we have to trudge through the muddy waters of our own selves to find that happiness. I am not trying to sell a self help “your best life” type of gimmick. What I am saying is this; we constantly sell out every single day to the immediate gratification of stupid little things in the hopes to bide off the pain of that gaping hole in our chest.

We do it with: coffee, shoes, games, relationships; some do it with drugs, lust, hate, murder, envy, the point is we all do it, none of us are any better than the rest.

However we can have fulfillment.

We just have to swallow that huge ball of powdery flour called pride; it doesn’t go down easy, it isn’t meant to. When we do that we will see that fulfillment has been in us the entire time. His name is Jesus.

What’s that you say? You have tried the church thing and it didn’t work?

I am not talking about the church thing: I am talking about that tanned Israeli who showed us the way to freedom and unlocked the door with his blood-that man isn’t church in the sense your thinking. He beckoned us to follow him to the ends of the earth preaching and teaching and healing and casting out devils and pulling down strongholds and principalities and powers. That man is not for a half-ass gospel. Fulfillment begins with him, and in Him we lose ourselves and gain his identity, but in that losing of ourselves and gaining of Him we are re-born into something wholly different but still bearing individuality.

It is beautiful right? We die to ourselves so we can gain Him, but in doing it we actually gain ourselves-or the part of “us” that is real and irrevocable. When we see that we see happiness.

What does it look like to be happy? Ask anyone who has served the poor, built houses for the needy. Ask Heidi Baker or Jacki Pullinger. You ask them what it is to be happy and why they serve and deal with the broken of the broken. Crack addicts, meth heads, prostitutes and the starving, the sick and the blind.

They do it for love; real unadulterated and unselfish love.

Maybe we aren’t happy because we are selfish as hell and do not want to swallow that powdery ball.
I understand, some people choke on that pride and die in the process. Why risk it then? If we would open wide and swallow that pride we can chase it down with the water of life, and a little honey. It really isn’t that bad when you think about it; a moment of pain, or a few moments of pain, for the understanding of a life fulfilled in beauty and having an affluence of happiness that can change the world.

You think I am wrong, that is ok.

Look Jesus in the face and tell him you’re not happy with your life.

But before you do

Make sure you’re doing what he told you. I don’t mean the abstract stuff; the religious empty tradition, I mean the concrete explicit biblical stuff. Stuff like “…all the law and the prophets are summed up in these two things, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.’”

If you want to be happy it comes down to this, LOVE.

Love unselfishly and truly, bear your heart to be wounded, but know that Jesus can heal any wound. When we walk in love we are fulfilling the entire law and prophets. If you ask me, you can’t help but be happy when you are doing that.