Through The Needle's Eye

There is a difficulty recently whenever I get asked of my plans in life. You might have not yet known, but, through the grace of God, I finally graduated last April with an AB English degree. Praise God!

Most say I should proceed to Law School, and some who have the same passion for writing as I do, say taking a Master’s degree is better. My relatives on the other hand, I could tell, are desperate to have me find a job so I could help my family right away. It seems as if everybody around me is fussing about, pouring out suggestions, encouragements, and insults, but here I am, not moving an inch towards the direction they are telling me to go. At least not yet. The still, small voice is still telling me to stay, and to not make any rash decisions. And so I obeyed.

What was I to say? That I was waiting on God? I tried giving that answer when the most concerned people approached me. And for self-professed Christians, the responses I had received were pretty much not what I have expected.

               “No. You become a lawyer. You’d provide your future family well with that. You could still be a good Christian…just don’t do the really bad stuff.”

                “So you’re going to wait. There are countless fresh graduates in the country fighting over limited jobs and here you are, staying still. I don’t think the Bible tells you to do that. You’re interpreting it wrongly.”

It seems as if we are already trying to make Jesus fit in our lives, in ways we find convenient, rather than fitting our lives in Jesus, no matter how we find it inconvenient. There is a huge difference. Why, even in the Church, is Christ – the Bridegroom – fitted into our daily lives, rather than our lives wrapped solely around Him? Why do we deliberately choose through deceitful hearts, before we claim through “prayers” for blessing, rather than praying and waiting for whatever the Lord chooses for us?

I am reminded of a story in the gospels when a rich young man came to ask Jesus about eternal life. He followed all commandments the Torah tells them to follow, but he still found it incomplete. When Jesus answered, “Sell all your possessions, give it to the poor, and follow me,” the young man sadly turned around and left. It was too painful for him to give up everything he possessed. How was he supposed to eat and live as comfortably as before? How was he supposed to help provide his family if ever they needed anything? Couldn’t he still be this comfortable and be saved? After all, he follows the commandments. He would still be morally upright, wouldn’t he?

When he left, Jesus told his disciples that it was more difficult for a camel to enter a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When I was younger, I used to think it would be impossible then to get in God’s kingdom if I were rich. That was that. It still confused me however, as I knew a lot of Christians who were financially well-off. Finally however, I have learned through Kuya Randy, a missionary I have gotten acquainted to, that that was not the case after all.

In the olden days, camels had to get through a narrow gate they all called needle’s eye. For a camel to pass through the entrance, its burden on its back and those dangling by its sides are to be removed. After the camel has been free from the baggage, it has to kneel to be able to pass through the narrow door. Unless it kneels and unless its baggage has been lifted off, the camel could not get in.

We might not be as rich as this young man, but I still believe we still have to take off the baggage, and kneel before our Master. The rest – the jobs, the opportunities to receive – should follow, depending on the Father’s will. Even the tiniest detail, like choosing a job you’d do for the most of the rest of your life, should be surrendered to the Lord's will, if we want to step up in the Christian faith. A baby should never remain a baby. The more we push ourselves into that narrow gate, the more we have to take off. It’s hard. I could never even count how many times I have cried myself to sleep, feeling the pain of subjecting everything to the Master’s will.

As Eric Ludy puts it, “I believed! I believed that two thousand years ago, this guy named Jesus was nailed to a tree. And that He took all my sin upon himself and that I can now know for certain I won’t end up in hell. I believed it, okay? But then, if that’s all there was in Christianity, why was my life really no different than anyone else’s who had good morals, grades, manners, and hygiene?”

I have always wondered how different a Christian is from the non-believers who were practically “good” and never broke the law.

It’s surrender.

Because we are living in an age where the world has so entangled itself with our spirits, the act of surrendering rarely comes into a man’s mind…even a Christian man’s. We live and earn a living separately from our supposed devotion. Like oil and water together. Coming to think of it, is that God’s ultimate desire for us? I don’t think so.

We do not separate God from anything. Career, human relationships, and money are too petty to be placed separately or before God. And so we decide. Who do we really please with our plans and actions?