A Slow Death That You Don't Have to Die

It haunts me.

The rich young ruler.

He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Why?

Why did he do that? He took the temporary over the eternal?

I ask, I wonder, but I know the answer.

I know why, because I live on the border of his heart everyday. I dangerously teeter over the edge of choosing the temporary.

But I cling to a promise and I know it's possible, I know it's better, to accept Jesus' offer.

And so it haunts me. I found it... I might struggle to live it sometimes, but I found it. An average teenage girl from Canada.

Why didn't the rich young ruler find it, that promise?

And I live in a world of rich young rulers not all of them young and not all of them rulers but they're all rich.

How wealth blinds us. How it torments us, enslaves us, impoverishes us.

And I wonder how close am I? And I look around and I realize I'm very close because people who have the same thing as me under "Religion" on Facebook don't live hungry for His righteousness. They live the rich young ruler's life and I realize how close I really am and I must be conscious. I must stay alive and not fall into the life of the living dead that is so easily fallen into.

It haunts me.

So here's the truth.

Some days, I have no more thought out words or patient smiles or grace. And all I want to do is make a list of every living-dead person I know, every rich young ruler, and just go down the list and shake them. And tell them about the promise. Yell it if I have to.

But I don't.

And I realize I have to trust God's grace because he's the only one who raises the dead but it's so hard.

It's watching people die away. And all you do is whisper a prayer.

Lord, heal them.

Heal me.