Insights from Thomas a Kempis

Do you ever find yourself pursuing the things of God with little or no effort or enthusiasm? We read stories of people in the Bible who seemed to have no end to their excitement in following Christ. Stephen willfully died at the hands of Jews while he was preaching Christ to them. Paul suffered countless trials preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. Yet, I can't seem to follow Christ with joy or excitement even in the little every day things.

In the third book of Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ, he creates a dialogue between Jesus and a disciple (any follower of Jesus, not one of the twelve). In one of these conversations Jesus speaks to the disciple about how he is following Christ.

But for the good that never changes, for the prize beyond all prizes, for highest honor and the glory that never ends, men, alas, are too lazy to put forth the slightest effort. you should be ashamed, lazy and evergrumbling servant, when you see other men more eager to lose their souls than you are to gain life! They find greater joy in chasing after empty dreams than you have in pursuing the truth.
The desires of these men often end in disappointment but My promises never decieve anyone. The man who trusts in Me I never send away empty. When I make a promise I keep it, and I fulfill whatever I have pledged -- if only you remain faithful to My love unto the end. I reward all good men and I heartily acclaim all who are devout.

How can it be that we so quickly follow things that will never pay up? Deep down I think we do realize that our treasures on earth will not satisfy for eternity, but we still wholeheartedly follow after them. I think the problem is actually a problem of perspective. We have to see Christ in the right light, from the right angle. Many of us saw Christ as the one who could fix this problem I had with sin and guilt. As true and important as that may be, Christ wants us to see much more than that. We are to see Christ as our treasure -- infinitely valuable. Until we see Christ in that light, we will always more eagerly chase after the things of lesser value, simply because our perspective is wrong.