Heartburn
Have you ever had a heartburn? No, I’m not referring to the terribly painful health condition that’s keeping me up right now (shouldn’t have had that chocolate muffin right before bed).
I’m talking about that fire-in-your-bosom feeling or experience when you fall in love, with someone or something. That excitement, that passion, that overflow of joy with anticipation.
It may be a steady ember or a fireworks of emotions – but whatever its cause and the following array of symptoms, it’s sure to leave you with a lasting impression.
Have you ever had spiritual heartburn? A time when you felt God stirring your heart, whether through an inspiring sermon, stimulating bible study, or a sincere prayer? Perhaps you were on a mountaintop or in a vast desert. A time when you felt the grandiosity of God, or His generosity of grace?
In Luke 24, two individuals experience this kind of heartburn – they are walking to Emmaus, disappointed, discouraged and utterly disheartened after the death of Jesus.
They are so focused on their own sadness from their own dreams deferred that they do not even recognize Jesus when He comes and walks with them. God shields their eyes, too, for various reasons.
But Jesus still walks and talks with them, showing them how their expectations of a Messiah were grounded in selective listening of Scriptures and misguided, earthly ambitions. They wanted a Messiah who would give them political freedom and physical comforts rather than a Messiah who would give them internal freedom and spiritual blessings.
Jesus slowly opens their eyes to the truer, fuller, grander nature and mission of the Messiah by giving them a Bible study ranging from Genesis to Malachi. And as their vision is shifted from focusing on temporary pleasures to eternal promises, they begin to realize that perhaps the Messiah did have to suffer and die – and that perhaps Jesus wasn’t a failure after all! Perhaps He really is God, and He succeeded in providing a way for all people to experience release from guilt, shame, fear, sin, and ultimately, death. Could He really still be alive?!
And so they experience heartburn. Later, after they realize that the person who had been with them all along the way was Jesus (ask me to show you how and why that’s significant – a fascinating bible study!), they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32, NKJV).
Could it be that the reason why we can’t see God is because we, too, are focusing on our own disappointments, caused by misunderstanding of the nature and mission of God? For example, we want and expect God (if He is real) to protect us from harm, provide us good things like family, health, job security, etc. But what if God wants more for us than just gratitude for physical blessings? What if He wants us to fall in love with Him simply for who He is rather than what He can give us?
What if that means that He surprises us with enormous respect, trusting us with the freedom of choice, no matter how difficult the consequences of those choices may be on Him?
What if that means that He waits painfully patiently for us to realize the detrimental effects of selfishness and to accept willingly a lifestyle of Christ-centred and other-centredness that is only possible through God?
What if that means He is willing to risk being misunderstood for the sake of being really known and desired for His whole character, not just the bits and pieces that we like about Him?
What if our own expectations of what it means to follow Jesus need to be broken down? What if that means we may have to go through suffering, failures, and disappointments? After all, that is what Jesus went through – He had to suffer and die before He could resurrect and be our Saviour.
So if we truly want to see God, we need to be open to a paradigm shift; we need to be willing to go back to old passages and see them with new eyes, willing to spend time listening to different ideas, willing to make difficult choices, willing, even, to suffer — willing, in essence, to catch on fire.
by: Jinha Kim
"But those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14