This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

Today, I am finding that truth is hard. Complete honesty with yourself, and then finding a way to transparently communicate what is on your mind--that is a difficult task. When I was reading the Four Loves today, I was consitantly discovering selfishness in my love--or just in myself.

It is a sad realization when you'd like to lookd down at yourself and see something you are good at, and you realize you have to strain your eyes to see how far you have yet to go. Sadder still because most of the time I am not capable of that clarity of vision, and so I selfishly/vainly act like I am "doing pretty well."

We learn about the feeding of the five thousand in Sunday School, but I doubt that I've found in these words before such a a stark contrast between our human perspective and God's:

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but
raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"

"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" -John 6:35-60

This section comes after they have been given food , and then raced around the sea to recieve more from the bottomless baskets. When Jesus tries to tell them what he's really all about, they are unwilling to accept reality. They refuse to admit that he is who he says he is, (Is this not Jesus, whose mother and father we know? ) what he wants to do for them, (How can he give us his flesh to eat? ) and what he asks them to do (This is a hard teaching, Who can accept it? ).

This is not much different in my life. I want God to bless me the way I want him to. And I want my day to accomplish my goals, and i ask him for and thank him for the things that fit in my plan.

But as I study Scripture, there is so much that is his plan. There is so much of him telling us what he desires, and what his purposes are. There are so many times he shows us what his love looks like, and what his power can do. And then we somehow act like it's just a book. And that God has to fit into the corner of our life that we've set aside for him.

The people had their own wants and desires. Jesus wanted communion. He didn't ignore their desires, he simply had more to offer.

Spending time with him leaves me wanting his meal. Wanting his will, not mine. This is a hard teaching. Lord help me to accept it.

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