J.R. Ewing, Br'er Rabbit, Jesus, and the Destruction of the One True Ring

So what do you do when you sit down to write, you promised yourself you'd write every day, but you don't really feel inspired to write?

You write anyway, dadgummit.

I wonder if this feeling is the tiniest glimpse of what Jesus must have felt at the point in his life about which the following words were written:

"As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." (Luke 9:51)

"Resolutely." That's how the NIV version puts it. What about a couple of the others?

"he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem"--The Message

"He steadfastly and determinedly set His face to go to Jerusalem."--amplified Bible

Hmmmm...that seems like a bit of a theme is emerging there. "Gathered up his courage" and "steadfastly and determinedly" don't necessarily sound to me like terms that indicate that he was particularly fired up to be heading to his death in Jerusalem, but that he knew it was his destiny, so he determined that he would "suck it up" and go, regardless of how he felt about it. "Not my will, but yours," he said later on about the Cross.

I was watching an episode of Dallas this afternoon. (If you weren't around in the 80s to see J.R. Ewing scheme and scam his brother, wife, other family members, close friends, casual acquaintances, enemies, and--most of all--ol' Cliff Barnes, then you were missing out, friend.) Anyway, in this particular episode, J.R. was trying to manipulate his hated ex-sister-in-law Pamela Barnes Ewing into going down on a wild goose chase looking for emeralds in the jungles of South America. So in standard Br'er Rabbit fashion, he told her how much he didn't want her to go. As a result, Pam resolutely set out for South America, and J.R. got his way once again. Pam became resolute in her desire to go to South America only because of deception--she had no idea what she was going to face down there. Had she known, she would not have gone under any circumstances. Jesus, on the other hand, was resolute to go to Jerusalem, despite his full and complete knowledge of what he would face there.

I have no real knowledge of what awaits me in Jerusalem, but the circumstances that led me to be going there, combined with the tuggings in my heart of hearts, strongly indicate that I'm supposed to be there--that God has something in store for me there. So may I resolutely set my face there. And along the way, if I learn a little something about doing things I don't feel like doing (like writing in this blog tonight), I reckon that's a good thing, too.

I am too selfish to regularly gravitate toward doing things that I don't feel like doing. May I learn to do them anyway. Perhaps writing in this blog tonight was a step in that direction. I didn't feel like writing. I didn't feel like I'd learned anything worth putting to (virtual) paper in my devotional reading today. But for some reason, God saw fit to see me through to the other side. And in getting a little inspired, looking up a few verses, I actually grabbed hold of some truth that may well draw me closer to the heart of God.

It's a mark of maturity when a kid stops just doing what he wants to do, and starts doing what needs to be done in spite of his feelings about it. I reckon the same is true with regard to maturing spiritually, too. Time to grow up, Ben. Samwise Gamgee didn't feel like carrying Frodo up the slopes of Mount Doom to destroy the Ring, either.

But it needed to be done.