The Missing List
I have been with people facing something serious — where there doesn't seem to be a future and all you have is your past. Some of them were calm. Others were not. A reflection on Matthew 25:31-46.
Matthew 25:31–46
Phrases that spoke to me today:
Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me when did we see you and did not minister to you?
Applying the Word to My Life:
I think we all have a mental picture of what "the day" will look like — the day when our life is over and we are standing in front of Jesus. I know I had my thoughts. That is what made this reading so jarring the first time I really paid attention to it. It is nothing like the picture I had in my mind.
What was missing was the most surprising thing to me. There isn't a big list of every time each person has messed up. I always envisioned something like the list I used to make for myself for confession — I stole X times, swore X times, etc. But that isn't there. The entire test is relationship — not a profession of it, but a lived one. Loving Him so deeply that it genuinely changes the way you move through the world.
The ones who were rewarded could not account for it. They had not been keeping a log of the moments that were supposed to matter. They had simply moved through the world a certain way, and it turned out that movement had been toward Him all along. They knew Him. Knowing Him had opened their eyes.
The others were equally confused, but for a different reason. They were searching — going back through everything, looking for the moments that would have counted, and coming up empty. It was not that nothing had happened. It was that they had been pulled internally so much that they didn't see Christ all around them.
The real harm sin does is not to the list. It is to the ability to see. Its harm is the blindness that comes as we keep turning inward — relying on ourselves, hiding from the truth, until eventually we become like the rich man who had God at his gate every day and never looked up.
I have been with people facing serious illness — where there doesn't seem to be a future and all you have is your past. Some of them were calm. Not because they had led a perfect life — they knew better than that. They knew Christ, knew their shortcomings, and knew His love and mercy. They were not standing on a record. They were standing on a relationship.
Others were not calm. What I saw in them was anxiety — a worry that the list did not add up to enough. They had been keeping score for a long time, and now that something serious had arrived, the score felt uncertain. They had the realization that, if it was entirely up to them and their efforts, it was never going to be enough.
The difference was not the record. It was the relationship. The calm came not because their record was clean. They were calm because they knew who they were going to meet. The test is not an accounting. It never was.
The woman at the well had been hiding, and she found out He already knew her. The rich man had God at his gate every day and never looked up. That is what the difference costs. The people I have seen who were at peace knew the question. It wasn't what they had done. It was who they knew.
My Response for Today:
I will look closely at one place in my life where I am resting on accomplishments instead of relationship — and figure out why I am trying to rely on myself.