Up and At 'Em!

Are you eager to be up and at ‘em today?

I hope so.  Actually, I hope you’re eager to be up and at ‘em every day.  Very few of us are, though.  I’m not.  Don’t take that the wrong way.  I still very much love my job.  I still enjoy almost all the things I do.  But I still have days, sometimes, where I wake up and wonder if getting out of bed is really worth the trouble.  Days when I’d really like to stay in my nice, warm bed.  I think we all have days like that, no matter how much we may enjoy our lives.  It’s probably even more prevalent at this time of year, when the sun rises so late and when it’s so cold and forbidding outside.  We’d like to be like bears and just stay in our dens and hibernate until spring.

That’s not what we do, of course.  We get out of bed.  We get up and do what needs to be done.  We know that staying in bed all day is not a practical option for us.  And we know that it’s not what God wants us to do, either.  So, we get up and get going.

As I was thinking about this, I thought, “I wonder if Jesus ever had days like that.”  Days where he just really didn’t feel much like getting up and doing anything.  I don’t mean the days he spent in prayer and meditation.  I mean days where he woke up and thought, “I don’t feel like doing anything today.  I don’t feel like healing people.  I don’t feel like arguing with the Pharisees.  I don’t feel like working miracles.  I’d just like to stay in bed today.”

Now, Jesus was the divine Son of God, of course.  But Jesus was also fully human.  And it was a tough job he had, being Savior of the world.  Drawing a crowd everywhere he went.  Having people constantly make demands of him.  Having people always asking him questions, sometimes out of an honest desire to know, sometimes trying to trick him or trap him.  It would drain anybody after a while.

Then, I took my wondering even further.  I wonder if Jesus ever thought about it what it would be like to just be a human being, without all the pressure of being the Savior.  I wonder if Jesus ever came to a small town, and saw the local carpenter at work, and then watched him go home at night to his wife and family, and wondered what it would be like to have a life like that.  No pressure.  Nobody wanting to confront him.  Nobody looking at him with pleading eyes, begging him to heal their loved one.  Just get up in the morning, go to work, come home at night, spend some time with the family, go to bed.  The good, simple life of a good, honest man.

Well, we don’t know that Jesus ever had any of those thoughts.  The Bible really has very little to say about what Jesus might have thought or what he might have felt.  We sometimes can infer it from his words and his actions, but most of the time we can’t.  The Bible doesn’t say much about Jesus’ inner thoughts and feelings.  What it tells us about are Jesus’ words and his actions.

And that’s the bottom line, really.  All of us are going to have days when we just don’t feel like doing what we know we need to do.  All of us are going to have days when we wish our lives were different, no matter how much we may enjoy our lives now.  But those feelings and wishes are not what define us.  What defines us is what we do about them.

Whether Jesus had any of those thoughts and feelings or not really does not matter.  What matters is what he said and what he did.  What matters is that he got up each day and did what God the Father wanted him to do.  He continued to do what the Son of God was required to do.  He continued to say what the Son of God was required to say.  He did it regardless of whether he felt like it that day.  He did it because it was what God the Father wanted him to do.  And he did it because, in the end, it was what he wanted to do, too, because he wanted to serve and obey God the Father.

And that’s what matters for us.  It’s okay if, once in a while, we have a day when you don’t feel like getting out of bed.  But what matters is that we get out of bed anyway.  What matters is that we get up and do what God wants us to do.  Because, in the end, it’s what we want to do, too, because in the end, we want to serve and obey God, too.

So if you don’t feel like being up and at ‘em today, God understands.  But get up anyway.  Do what needs to be done.  It’s what God wants you to do.  And in the end, it’s what you want to do, too.