Mark 10: 17-27

¹⁷ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

¹⁸ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

²⁰ “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

I have always been drawn to this story. There’s something about the way Jesus looks on this eager young man with love. I also always feel conviction over these verses; I see myself in the rich young man in a lot of ways. Could I give it all up? Am I standing in the way of someone’s healing or hearing the TRUTH because I can’t let go of what I have? I think of other places in the world where children starve, families are torn apart by war and religious differences, etc. Do I have something they need but am too comfortable to give it up? (Click here for an inspiration story about one American who had the guts to go help.)

“Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Dang. Jesus’s love isn’t based on whether or not you give everything away, he still loves. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” This man inquires, Jesus instructs, the man walks away, Jesus continues loving. Does it hurt His heart when we stand between our riches and those in need? Oh, I would write forever on these few short verses, this small little interaction, the reverberating story that fills every American’s heart: can I give it all up??

They Say He Looked On Me With Love

His hands were worth so much,
They were etched with the fingerprints only perfection could perform.
His ankles were bound to strong feet,
Fit for walking to wherever his father’s whisper lingered.
He was more than I ever gave him credit,
He was more than I ever noticed.
His words were truth,
But I still asked “What more could I give?”
They say he looked on me with love
When I stood between the poor and my pockets.
They say he looked on me with love
When I fancied life’s decorations over his eternal promises.
And somehow, 
When life turned me into laboring and striving,
Achieving and gaining,
Winning and cashing-in all the happiness
For empty tears and numb pity,
Somehow He sank deeper and deeper into the shadow 
Cast behind my mound of all I tried to hold onto.
But I’m running out of hands
And my hands are running out of fingers,
And the grasp that I thought I had on this world
Slipped one more time through my webbings
And landed with a royal rushing plead of “What more can I give?”
And they say he looked on me with love
When I walked away,
Still tied to my master,
My strife.
And here I am sinking in echoing words of Solomon,
In the paintings of David’s poems
And the reminders that lift off pages alive and breathing,
But I’m molding inside while the less-dressed freeze
And the hungry growl once more for what I am held captive to.
This piece of me is wrapped up into every heart,
Every labyrinth of veins and tissue and brain,
Every fallen spirit beats these same memorizing temptations
That leave the selfish crooked and owned, 
And the poor thin and deflating.
So I carry onto my shoulders the weight of all I have chosen,
Let it crush and bruise the freedom he talked of,
Let it consume me and mold me and etch into my figure
All it was ever meant to be-
The wasting waste of a shifting shadow that I am addicted and enslaved to.
They say he looked on me with love when I claimed to be more than I was,
And they say he kept smiling,
Even as I walked away.