Wretched Woman, Unburdened Camel (Rom. 7; Matt. 19)

After having spent all but a handful of years of my life steeped in learning and/or enforcing the rules of classrooms, walking away from those rules and the position of governing a very small kingdom as a lesser ruler has been difficult even though I left the classroom three years ago now. The money I earned was far easier to walk away from than the feeling that I controlled my small kingdom of a classroom in an area of expertise. My flesh keeps rising up in rebellion as I keep stepping off the throne of my paltry life and stepping down into the quicksand of this world.

Those the least bit familiar with the Bible probably know the verses Jesus spoke about the difficulties of a rich man entering heaven (Matthew 19:21-24). Somewhere in me lives the absurd picture of a camel straining hopelessly to pass through the eye of a tiny needle. As a quilter, this hits home, as I can’t even thread my needle nowadays without my bifocals, and even then it still doesn’t come easily to me, so the absurdness of the picture increases. In all probability, the reference had a meaning maybe much more obvious to Jesus’ hearers at the time, such as a difficult, narrow gate that a loaded-down camel couldn’t pass through or an alternate word close in translation that actually means rope, which would be impossible to thread through a regular-sized needle. Whatever the meaning of it, the big picture is not lost, as the readers get the allusion and walk away with a better understanding of the difficulty (not impossibility) for the rich to enter heaven. 

This kind of anchor of the known in understanding the known helps me struggle through the difficulty of making sense of biblical literature. I need reminders like this often because my own “riches” of knowledge and the comfort of ruling a classroom feed my legalistic bent and breed in me pride and self-sufficiency and the desire to rule myself that I have laid down at the feet of Jesus—at least I thought I had, I meant to, but oops, I must have picked it up again without realizing it because here I find myself dealing with the same problems I dealt with not so long ago and will in all likelihood forget at some point in the future and deal with them again when they rise back up.

This is the struggle:

• How do I leave behind the patterns of a life lived not totally enveloped by grace but rather haphazardly ruled by legalism (even if discipline and rules are necessary in classrooms)? 

• How do I leave behind the riches and wealth of a kingdom I created and a throne I made and sat on wearing laurels I won with my own efforts, my degrees, my classroom management plans, my successes, my, my, my . . . (see the problem here is me) to put it all down and live entirely for Him, understanding that He is enough. He is always enough! 

The problem is easy to see; the result is a struggle that becomes apparent to anyone near me caught in the vortex of my sometimes-tornadic life; the solution, not terribly obvious even to an experienced legalistic struggler. 

Legalism has been bred into the very fibers of my being, and much like salt poured into a glass of water, I am finding the process of ridding it from me very difficult and taking much longer than I want; I am finding myself crying out with Paul once again, “What a wretched [woman] I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25). I find in myself the struggle of seeing my sin and having to deal with it over and over and over again. In one way, it is assuring me that God is still working on me, that He isn’t finished with me yet (Phil. 1:16). In another way, it is utterly tiring to think about fighting this battle until the day I die, resisting what I am, what has been molded and shaped by my raising, my decisions, my choice of career, my petting of my sinful flesh for so many years. In a way, it seems much easier to superficially bury my head in the proverbial sand and lie to myself about my worth. 

Did I mention God hates liars? Jesus spoke to the Pharisees (those of a particularly legalistic bent in His time) and told them they were of their father, the devil, and their will was to do their father’s desires, their father who was a murderer from the beginning, lacking truth, lying out of his own character, a liar, the father of lies (John. 8:44). I am getting into deeper waters here, which is my point: I pridefully lie to myself when I give in to the lusts of my flesh that want what this world offers, a lie, believing even for an instant that what it offers is of benefit to me over of what God offers, which is the truth and through it the way of salvation (1 Jn. 2:16), and in doing so, I load my camel with false riches that will never be able to make it through the eye of the needle into heaven. Maybe the text should have also read that it is next to impossible for prideful teachers to enter the gates of heaven. . . 

So I come back to these basic truths every single time I struggle:

I have never been able to save myself. (I’m going to let that sit and resonate for a bit.)

God has never asked me to save myself. He saved me with the precious blood of His son Jesus Christ who laid down His very precious valuable life and left His very real throne in heaven to die for me, to redeem me, to make me whole, to enable me to enter His presence now and for all eternity. 

I will never be able to save myself. It has not ever been possible, will never be possible. The Bible makes it clear that I am saved by faith, and that faith is a gift of God that I should not boast (Eph. 2:8-9). The good works I manage to do, I only do because God prepared them ahead of time and set me in place to do them, not because I am anything special (v. 10).

My job is to unburden my camel of anything this world offers to pile on and pick up the cross He asks me to carry daily—to look to the cross and live--until the needle is threaded by Him! 

My prayer is this: God forgive me as I struggle through the remainder of this world in which I live, as I make messes, speak out of turn, and walk in a crooked line instead of the straight way you’ve made for me. I know that Your way is best, help me to walk in Your way everlasting instead of reverting to the lies of a father I have renounced. Help me to function as Your child and bring you glory. Help me avoid the lies, the sand pits, the traps, the foxes in the vineyards. Lord, help me!