Thread The Needle With A Camel?

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

~Mark 10:25

 

A young man came to Jesus, knelt down before Him, and said "Good Teacher, what can I do to obtain eternal life?"  The young man, it turns out, was very good at trading, bartering, and making money.  So his question to Jesus was "what kind of deal can I offer to obtain eternal life?"  Now, some might gasp as they feign offense at this young man's gall trying to barter for eternal life.  But don't we do that same thing?  How many times have we said, "God, if You'll just get me out of this situation, I'll......"?  

  

People have, somehow, come to think God is in the wheeling and dealing business, and He's going to call us one day and say, "Let's Make A Deal!  You're My Next Contestant!"  Is that the kind of God you know?

 

The part of the story that truly struck home with me was the part about the camel fitting through the eye of the needle.  This, on the surface, sounds ridiculous! But if we do just a little digging, we discover that during Jesus' time, Jerusalem actually had a gate called the Eye of the Needle!  Not only that, but it was the only gate open on the Sabbath!  Not only that, it was used almost exclusively by merchants.  And here's the part that I found most impressive, the only way a merchant could get his camel through this gate was to unload all of its baggage and then the camel would have to crawl through the small opening.  It took a LOT of time, patience, and practice to coax these camels to crawl through this gate.

 

Lesson: Our baggage takes our focus off of God and His loving gifts. Unload our baggage and then we can look full in His Wonderful Face!