The Journey 36: Tranformation in my life
Read. Luke 19:1-10
Key Verse: “My son do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity” [Proverbs 3:1].
A man had a passion for raising lawns in front of his house. He used to take a lot of pain to raise the lawns. He would carefully water the lawn himself, and will also take pain to use a lawn mover to crop the grass and make it look beautiful. One day his young son came out and started playing in the lawn which his father took pain to lay out. Seeing the young son playing on the lawn, the mother came running to stop the son from playing on the lawn and thus ruining the beauty of the lawn. When the man saw his wife admonishing his little son for trying to ruin the lawn, the man told his wife to allow their son to play on the lawn. “ But he is going to ruin your lawn, he does not know how hard you work to keep this lawn in this shape” the wife remarked. But the man smiled and said to his wife, “ I am not rearing lawn, I am rearing my child”. There are times in life when we do not what is precious in life and what are those things in life that is of no value. It is when we are able to make a discernment of the precious things that we have life becomes transforming.
On Monday’s we meditate on how we can bring about transformation in our personal life. It is the life of Zacheus that we are meditating on. A man who was a recluse suddenly finds that Jesus Christ chose to come to his house and have meals with him. Suddenly his house filled with loud talks, discussion, laughter and what not. A house that hardly had any guest suddenly is filled with people. Zacheus is astounded at the joy the that he seems to experience at the presence of Jesus in his house and host of other people. He realizes that all these years his concept of life was to hoard more and more money, more and more material things, and enjoy these things all alone or only in the company of his family. He also enjoyed a sadistic happiness derived by cheating other people. But now he is experiencing a different joy all together. Here is life and an experience which he knows that money cannot buy experiences and memories that cannot be taken away by anyone. This brings him to a realization that he needs to get rid of all the useless things in his house and try to bring into his home and his life things that are more valuable than money and gold. It is this inner conviction that forces Zacheus to say that “ Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount”. Zacheus now realized that he has the most valuable possession in his life– relationship with Jesus Christ. It is this relationship that has also given him the joy of human relationships. A man who lived lonely life, realizes the beauty of relating to others, the beauty of human relationship. A joy that cannot be expressed in words. Thus the new found relationship that Zacheus finds in Jesus Christ that brings a new dimension in his life. He now knows that the joy that he enjoyed in possessing all the material things and counting himself as rich was nothing compared to being poor, having no material blessing but having Jesus Christ in his life and the beauty of human relationships.
Transformation is all about discerning what are your true riches in life are and also throwing out from our life that which are useless.
Do you know what are the true riches that you possess or that which God has given to you?
For Further Study: Genesis 13, Proverbs 2
Let us Pray: Lord help us to always discern what is precious and what is not precious in life. Thank