Meditation on John 8:31-33

        So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide 
        in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the 
        truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him,

        "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved 

        to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?"

                - John 8:31-33

Jesus calls:
Abide.
Listen.
Remain in my word.
Rest.
Live.
Be set free.

But Jesus,
We are Christians.
We are not enslaved by anything.
We don't need to be set free.
It's a good thing too,
Because we don't really have time for abiding.
We're too busy, you see.
Working two jobs,
Overtime whenever we can get it.
Gotta pay our bills you know,
No one else is going to do it for us.
And we're not really interested in listening.
To be honest, we never really hear you, Jesus.
The Christian radio station we listen to in the car is encouraging enough.
The tv show playing in the background at home keeps us entertained.
We keep our headphones plugged in when we're out and about.
Silence is just uncomfortable anyways.
And we don't really read your word.
It's all just full of things we've heard before,
Or things we don't understand.
We just don't have the energy or focus to get anything more out of it.
When we're done a long day of work we just want some easy entertainment.
Surely you understand that, Jesus.
And is that some sort of joke, talking about rest?
You already heard about how much we work.
We volunteer at church and at school.
The kids need to be in sports and dance and gymnastics and church club.
We have so many travel plans, just as soon as we can afford them.
We'll rest when we're dead.
And Jesus, we ARE living.
Just look at us.
We're being promoted at work.
Everyone calls us successful.
We just bought a new car, a better house, a bigger tv.
We get so many likes on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.

Why do you say we need to "be set free"?