Disturbed

My father has often said that you cannot improve the future without disturbing the present. I have to say though that I really don’t like the present being disturbed too much. This was brought home to me during a time when we were renovating our laundry. I was very excited to start with, finally my laundry was going to be finished, I had only been waiting fifteen years or so for it to happen, Yah! However, as the process took longer than I anticipated I found my excitement dwindling somewhat as my verandas continued to be a mess and there was dust over everything for weeks. I really had to pray for patience!

Yet, as I thought about it, there was a present time which was really disturbed, two thousand years ago, to improve our future. As I understand it there were some people back then that didn’t like it at all. Jesus said a lot of things that disturbed the Roman and church leaders and they didn’t like that one bit.

Even now when we accept Jesus into our lives there is a great disturbance that happens, we have to change the way we live and deal with those sins in our lives that He does not want there but our futures are assured and will be totally undisturbed.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34.

On Palm Sunday the people were very excited about the arrival of the new king, He was riding on a donkey just as the prophets had predicted. Their salvation was at hand; it was finally going to happen. Yet, a week later and progress hadn’t been made, the job wasn’t done, the Romans were still in power, why were things taking so long! Like me, their perception of how things would unfold was off.

Even when we accept the gift of His sacrifice, our “present” must be disturbed in order to improved our future. That sword has to do its work in our lives. We must be cleaned out and things will get messy as we struggle to live in an imperfect world and learn how to do things differently to what we have been but oh what a wonderful future we have waiting for us in Heaven. There will be sadness and grief over all sorts of things but our futures are filled with hope because we have come to Jesus individually at the foot of the cross, we have asked Him to forgive us, not just waved the palm leaves with the crowd.

Even so, we might not understand all that God has in store for our lives but we have that special hope that only comes because Jesus is our King.

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13.