If I could go into the mind of my little dog, I wonder what he thinks about the life that he has been given. Is Carl truly content with how it has all worked out for him? Is he thinking about a life that he wishes he could have had? A life full of frolicking with his Frenchie siblings?
Could Carl be disenchanted with his life? If so, what would he do to be able to change it? Would he run away in search for the life that he thought he should have had? Or could he find contentment in his life with my husband and I?
We will never know. But what we do know is that everyone has been given a unique life to live. It is like a card hand that has been dealt and how we play the hand will determine are character and integrity.
One of the saddest stories in the Bible has to do with a man that had been dealt an amazing hand but he didn’t see it. For three years, Judas walked beside Jesus and witnessed incredible miracles and heard messages that were spoken with great authority.
He believed that Jesus was going to be king and over take the Roman Empire. And as Jesus took over, he would become rich and powerful. But that didn’t happen. As the days drew closer to the death of Jesus, Judas knew that he had to take a different approach if he was going to become rich and powerful.
So Judas went to the religious leaders and was given thirty silver coins to betray Jesus. Instead of finding satisfaction in what he had done, Judas felt a need to go back to the religious leaders with the hope that they would give him a place among them. But they only treated him with contempt which was too much for him to bare. At this point, Judas felt there was no other recourse but to hang himself.
All because he was disenchanted. You see he couldn’t see who Jesus was because he was focused on who he wanted Jesus to be. Can’t we all relate to this? If something goes terribly wrong in our life, don’t we all become disenchanted with who God is? Thinking that we know best, we can easily become angry with God and in some cases deny his existence.
When we are in our darkest hours, we need to take our eyes off of who we want Jesus to be and place it on who Jesus is. You see there were others that died that day and one man’s outcome was totally different from Judas.
Three men hung from crosses, two robbers that deserved their punishment and one that was God. And as they hung there, one of the robbers realized who Jesus was and asked for forgiveness. And it was granted. This criminal that knew he was guilty and deserving of death was forgiven and taken with Jesus into Paradise.
This is the Jesus I know. Enchanting isn’t it?