Years ago, a church member stopped at my office for "just a little
talk." During his little chat he told me he was getting a divorce. After
22 years of marriage, two children, and 18 years of house payments, he
was getting a divorce. When I asked why, he summed up his unbearable
home situation by saying, "My wife doesn't understand me."
When
pressed for examples, he didn't get much further than she cooked his
eggs too long, and she kept telling him not to leave his dirty socks and
underwear on the bedroom floor. Since he was not understood, he felt
perfectly right in taking up with another lady who could cook an egg.
Of course, the feeling of being misunderstood cannot be confined to
the marrieds among us.
A goodly number of teens are absolutely
convinced their parents have no concept of what is on their minds, in
their hearts, and in their lives. When teens do have a moment of
weakness and confess a problem to their parents, all too often they hear
something like this: "Kid, you call that a problem? You don't know what
a problem is. Why, when I was your age ...."
"You don't
understand me." That's the lament of the under-appreciated, underpaid,
un-promoted employee. We all know if our boss had the sense to really
look at us, we would have received the promotion and benefits that went
to the overrated doofus in the next cubicle.
We all want to be
understood. Every one of us has a craving, a longing, a yearning for
somebody, anybody, to truly, fully, completely understand us: to give us
the benefit of the doubt, to put the best construction on who we are and
what we say and do.
I sometimes wonder if Jesus didn't feel the
same way ... about being misunderstood.
Truly, if ever a man was
misunderstood, it was Jesus. Jesus was misunderstood by the crowds that
followed Him; He was misunderstood by the Pharisees who considered Him a
blasphemer, a heretic, and the devil incarnate, who was trying to
rewrite God's Scripture and disregard His Laws. The priests of Jesus'
day thought of Jesus as competition, a false prophet, guiding the people
down a path of doom and destruction. It took the coming of the Holy
Spirit to remove the fog of misunderstanding from the minds of His
disciples.
Read through the Gospels and you will be amazed at the
intensity of the misunderstanding surrounding the Savior.
This is
why I pray you understand. To be your Savior from sin is why Jesus was
born into this world. To be your Savior from the Law's condemnation is
why He lived a perfect life. To be your Savior from the devil's
temptations is why He rejected every shortcut that Satan proposed. So
you might be able to stand before God, washed clean of your sin, is why
innocent Jesus allowed Himself to be condemned.
So you might live
forever, Jesus died.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, I will never
understand the love and grace which brought the Savior into this world
to save me. Even so, without complete understanding, may I rejoice in
the forgiveness and salvation He has won. In the Savior's Name. Amen.
Pastor Ken
Klaus Lutheran Hour Ministries All rights reserved;
not to be duplicated without permission.
