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.” Mark 10:21
“The Master said to him, with a particular tenderness: you lack one thing. Only one! With what expectancy must the young man have waited for the Master’s answer! Without a doubt, it was the most important one he was to have in his whole life. “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and come follow me.” It was an invitation to give himself entirely to the Lord. The young man had not expected this. God’s plans do not always coincide with ours, with those we forge in our imagination, in our dreams. God’s plans, in one way or another, always demand detachment from everything that enchains. If we are to follow Christ, our soul must be free. That young man’s wealth constituted one big hindrance to his accepting Jesus’ demand, the greatest demand of his life.”
Francis Fernandez in In Conversation with God: Meditations for Each Day of the Year, volume 3 (London: Scepter, 1990) 419.
As the Lausanne Congress wraps up, each of us as participants has been called to commit to collaboration with God and each other. This collaboration aims to give ourselves “entirely” to the Lord in service with each other.
What about you? If the Lord looked compassionately into your eyes, what would He say? For many of us, Jesus might proclaim: One thing you lack.
Some, like the rich young man, we must set aside the security of money to find a security more reliable in God. For others, we must set aside our comfort or our fears, our plans or our agenda.
God wants us all to “detach from everything” that enchains us. We must do this not because we are some ascetic treating God’s good gifts as bad. We do this because we want to attach to Him, the highest good for us.
You don’t have to be at the Lausanne Congress to make this commitment. Pause today, consider any attachments that you may have. Of these Jesus says, “One thing you lack.”
Surrender them to God. Collaborate fully with His plans and purposes which are always for your good and for His glory. This is the pathway to giving yourself entirely to the Lord.