by Pam Chun
HIM Email Prayer List
May 20, 2003
"How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." Luke 18:24-27
Lately, I've been pushing a lot of camels through needles. Every time I turn around, there's another big-eyed, cud-chewing, knock-kneed, fly-swatting, camel standing in front of me, fully loaded and waiting to be squeezed, pressed, wedged, shimmied, stuffed, forced, thrust, jammed, crammed, rammed through the narrow sliver of a needle's eye.
What have I done to deserve this?
I gave my life to Christ.
That's not the answer you, or I, wanted to hear. That's not the expectation preached from the pulpit most Sundays, nor from center stage of an evangelistic crusade. "Come, and I will make you a pusher of camels!" But that's exactly what Jesus says. "Come," he said to the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew, "follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Forget what you know, put aside what you CAN do, I am asking you to do something you CAN'T DO.
Never does Jesus ask the disciples to do something easy: Feed thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes. Heal the sick, cast out demons, walk on water. These are impossible tasks from a human perspective. And while God hasn't asked any of us to walk on water lately, He has surely asked you, like I, to do something completely out of our league and beyond what we know we can do.
A Christ-follower's life is all about the impossible, about living against the odds in all circumstances, not just the extraordinary ones. Jesus exhorts us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:2731):
"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse
you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek,
turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him
from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes
what belongs to you, do not demand it back."
How hard is that? In all honesty, really hard. Loving an enemy, turning a cheek, giving to everyone who asks - that's pushing camels, stinky, dirty, hairy, slobbering camels that don't plan on going anywhere at this particular time, thank you, ma'am.
Yet, that is what God calls us to do. Not because He thinks we can. Not because He takes sadistic pleasure in seeing us fail. God puts camels in front of us because He wants us to know that when we can't, He CAN. The Lord does not set us up for failure. Far from that, He has created us for Glory - to know, share in, and worship His glory. If we hear voices that say, "You will fail if you don't try harder, work smarter, spend more time" - that's not God, that's Satan, who will try us, work us, spend us, use and abuse us until there's nothing left.
The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, by contrast, desires to fill us with continuous new understanding and revelation of all that is possible through Him. That's why He gives us camels to thread. Like a magician with a new sleight of hand, God can hardly wait to show us the impossibilities He can overcome.
How do you thread a camel through the eye of a needle? Start at the end, our wit's end because that is where God begins. He is always the step beyond, the step above, that place where faith lives, where miracles happen and the impossible becomes a common, every day occurrence.
Many a morning, I wake up and say, "Lord, I just CAN'T do this. What you are asking me to do is as impossible. If you really want me to do this, you are going to have to do it, Lord." And you know what, He does. God takes that camel and slips it through the eye of that needle, and I praise Him even more for it.
When Moses encountered God at Mt. Horeb in the burning bush, God gave him an impossible task, a camel to thread: to ask powerful, cruel Pharoah to release the people of Israel. He questioned God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
"And God said, I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain." [Exodus 3:11-12]
The secret to camel pushing? Surrender. Knowing our limits and knowing that God in His limitless will be with us and letting Him pull that camel through. The reason for camel pushing? To worship God and give us cause to praise Him even more.
Amen.
Copyright 2003 Pamela A. Chun
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