Today's passage is Matthew 26: 31-35.
Jesus tells his disciples they will desert him that very night, but when he has risen, he will meet them in Galilee. They all say they won't desert him, especially Peter. When Jesus tells Peter he'll deny him three times before morning, Peter says he won't, and the other disciples echo him.
The disciples don't really hear what Jesus is saying because they don't understand his purpose, which is to die in our place and rise from the dead, overcoming death in order to free us from death and give us the Holy Spirit for a new life.
The disciples only hear Jesus say that they will do what they can't believe they are capable of doing let alone will do. They are absolutely sure they are loyal, faithful and ready to die with Jesus. They actually think they have the strength in themselves to keep their word. They make the mistake of trusting themselves, not God.
Even though I know this story, have met Jesus, been baptized and received the Holy Spirit, I still make the same mistake the disciples make. I trust in myself and not God. I don't know why I do it because I don't have a single example of when, trusting myself, things ever worked out. They didn't. I made a mess that God and others had to sort out.
The most recent example of mistakenly trusting myself occurred over the last couple of weeks and especially the last couple of days.
I had to go to the clinic yesterday because I was sick.
I got an injection, a bag of IV fluid, and five days of medicine.
The doctor said it was probably a seasonally induced sickness.
But I knew better. So did my wife, who got angry at me.
She confronted me over my workaholicsm, my refusal to eat lunch at school and my overall failure to look after my health.
She told me point blank that I was old and I couldn't live the way I was or I would collapse on the subway like last year. I was making her feel lonely, she said.
In addition to the usual issues of managing a school and forwarding plans for school improvement, I am responsible for organizing a report about our school for an accreditation team this year.
Maintaining our accreditation as a good international school is important. So, I've been putting in even longer hours than usual, working through lunch, staying late, complaining about mokjang taking up too much time that I needed for rest so I could work more.
Did I pray about my workload and the upcoming accreditation report? Of course.
Did I turn it over to God? Sort of.
In reality, I took the whole thing onto my own aged, narrow shoulders and tried to carry it.
I got sick and nearly collapsed again. I had to miss two days of school.
I got my wife worried and angry.
Like the disciples, I was so sure I could handle the situation of the upcoming accreditation visit. But even before the event arrived, I fell down.
Now I have to repent.
Now I have to seriously give my work to God and pray for his guidance, inspiration and strength to do the task he has given me.
I can't do it without him. I'm hopelessly inadequate to the task.
Thank you, Lord, for showing me--again!--how arrogant and misguided I am about my abilties. Give my your grace to repent. Plumb my sinful depths to release a sincere repentance. Loosen my grip on my work. Break my grip on things so that you can take over. Help me be a faithful servant, not a self-serving sinner lost in the delusion of his own adequacy. Have mercy, Lord. Help me, I pray.
