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Through the white picture-frame windows, closed by curlicue latches, I can see a short iron gate, bushes and hedges in various shades of green, and a tree bare from winter and covered in ivy. Birds sing. I have tea at my desk. I’m sitting in the home of C. S. Lewis, my hero of both the faith and literature. This room once belonged to his stepson, Douglas Gresham, and now I’m living here for two weeks.
It’s all more than I could have hoped for.
But what if I could give it all up? What if I could turn back the time, drop out of the master’s program I’ve worked so hard to be a part of, give up every precious experience I’m gaining in this beautiful land? I would do this all and more for the one thing I’ve desired for years.
The rich young man in the Gospel of Matthew asked, “What must I do to obtain eternal life?” He left sorrowful because the price was too high.
My problem isn’t so much with price. Through deaths of loved ones, loss of health, and multiple moves, I am not as scared to give things up as I once was. Nor do I have a problem seeing what I can do for eternal life, for I know that, as a believer in Christ’s death and resurrection and payment for my sins, I already have eternal life.
No, my question is both more and less holy. On bad days, I see the children others have been given and ask, “What must I give to become a mother?”
If I give up my career as an editor, my journey toward a master’s degree, the health I’ve worked to maintain, would I then be able to earn this privilege? Perhaps I haven’t prayed hard enough or long enough. Maybe I just need to hurry up and learn the lesson God has for me so He can finally bless me.
My namesake prayed to the Lord and received a son, the prophet Samuel. Why did God answer her and not me? Was it because she bargained with God, promising to give up her child to be a servant in the temple if only the Lord would provide the infant? If I, too, bargain, will I obtain what I seek?
On these bad days, I walk away sad, for I cannot obtain the prize I so desperately want.
The rich young man and I have different questions, yet our problem is the same: we don’t recognize the true prize. It is not eternal life or motherhood or any other blessing—those are gifts given freely above and beyond our life with God.
The true prize was sitting in front of the rich young man. The answer lay in the heart behind Hannah’s prayer in the temple. And it’s free to me and to all believers in Christ.
The rich young man left sad because he failed to see that a relationship with Christ was worth more than all his possessions—and even more than eternal life. Hannah received her answer to prayer because her ultimate goal wasn’t just to be a mother; she wanted the opportunity to worship the Lord by giving Him an offering worth more than the mandatory sacrificial lambs. If she had valued her son more than the Lord, she would not have kept her promise. Instead, she took her blessing as an opportunity to praise the Lord through sacrifice and prayer.
When you’re in love with a person, you’re willing to give up your time, money, and plans in order to be with them. As a wife, you hold dear the engagement ring your husband gave you, but you would give it up if it could somehow save your beloved’s life. Your relationship with the person is worth far more than what they give you.
When we place our ultimate hope, love, and satisfaction in the Lord, we can recognize that anything more than a relationship with Him is like that engagement ring—added grace, blessings from the kind heart of a Father. We can enjoy these things because we know they are gifts from our Father, but we can also willingly lay them down, for they are not the source of our joy.
Perhaps, like I do, you long for a good thing that God hasn’t chosen to give you. Or perhaps God has blessed you with the desires of your heart—family, health, financial provision, etc. Maybe you’re worried that these desires, whether fulfilled or not, can become more desirable than Jesus, that you will become the rich young man. Take heart! As the young man left, Jesus said, “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. . . . With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
On the bad days when we long for things more than we long for Christ, and on the good days when we find our joy in our relationship with Christ first and in His blessings second, may our prayer continue to be that God would do the miraculous and make our hearts long after Him.
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