Giving Blood: The Story Behind The Story

I sat in the big blue reclining chair today waiting to be pierced. Every eight weeks I get a polite call from an American Red Cross saying that they are in great need of my blood. As I sit back, I think about why I am waiting to be poked with a needle in the first place. What is the reason for all of this?

It’s true that if there were no accidents, there would be no American Red Cross. Without sick or dying people, giving blood would not be necessary. Accidents cause problems. Problems require solutions – giving blood. Without the problem, no solution is needed.

Jesus, at one time, was not very necessary for me. People told me that he was the solution to my problems but I didn’t see a problem in the first place. I thought of Jesus as a really nice guy who came to teach us how to live good moral lives. That’s the extent of why I thought Jesus came down to earth. So, when I heard about Jesus dying on the cross and spilling his blood for me, it didn’t make sense. I didn’t see a problem in my life for such a solution to exist.

In order for Jesus to become relevant to us, we have to realize that we are sick and dying right here right now. Though we like to think that we aren’t sick and dying, we talk about our brokenness everyday. However, we usually like to talk about others’ problems – conveniently looking beyond our own.

Hospitals contain many unique and wonderful people, who were going about their lives as usual until they got hit by a car, struck with cancer, or some other tragedy. However, in the case of our spirituality, our sick and dying state in not an accident. Though we were created uniquely and significantly in the eyes of God, by our own free will we stepped out of the yard and wandered into the street. We caused our own accident.

Now we sit in pain as the doctors desperately try to put us back together again. The only hope that we have of surviving is someone else’s blood. Without the blood, our efforts as well as the doctors don’t matter.

In a physical accident, the blood that I’m giving today may save someone’s physical life. But in the spiritual context, only the blood shed by Jesus will save someone’s spiritual life. What you or I could not do, he’s done.

“He lived the life we should have lived and he died the death we should have died,” pastor Mark Driscoll explains.

That’s the story behind my story today.

Every time I sit in that big blue chair, I think not of the blood I’m giving, but the blood I’ve been given by him.

“But [Jesus] was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” - Isaiah 53:5

Program My Happiness

Are you a happy person? What makes you happy?

Happiness is not as simple as we’d like to think. Take for example a dog. Why do some families buy a dog to increase their happiness while other families detest getting a dog? Why might one student jump for joy when getting a “B” on their math test and another student cry?

Anthony DeMello says, “What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head… Do you realize that you could have the finest looks and the most charming personality and the most pleasant of surroundings, and still be unhappy?”

What he’s getting at is that your happiness is directly related to the programming inside your head.

A student’s parents might program their son to think that getting an “A” on his math test is the only acceptable option. IF he gets an “A”, THEN his parents will accept him and he’ll be happy. A girl who grew up with a dog her whole life might think that IF she gets a dog when she leaves home, THEN she’ll be happy. You see, the fulfillment of these programmatic requirements inside the head determines the happiness, not the “A” or the “dog” itself.

It is true that being accepted by your parents or getting a dog after high school will bring flashes of excitement and pleasure, but we can’t mistake that for happiness.

DeMello continues, “If people want happiness so badly, why don’t they attempt to understand their false beliefs [due to the programming]? First, because it never occurs to them to see them as false or even as beliefs. They see them as facts and reality… Second, because they are scared to lose the only world they know: the world of desires, attachments, fears, social pressures, tensions, ambitions, worries, guilt, with flashes of the pleasure and relief and excitement which these things bring.”

We are being programmed daily by our family, friends, and culture. Adam and Eve, the first to be programmed, did not take the time to reflect on how the Deceiver was programming them with The Lie. So they ate. They thought it would make them happy, but it did not. This deception and programming has gone on even up till today.

So how do we un-program ourselves and then know how to live in God’s Reality? How do we get out of the Matrix and live in God’s Real world?

As you begin to read the bible and interact with others who are following Jesus, the light of Truth and the weight of Reality will begin to press into your darkness and start to expose your false beliefs and deconstruct the programming inside your head. Your thoughts and actions will be reconciled by the Spirit of God. You won’t fall prey to quick bursts of pleasure, but you’ll attach yourself to the rich roots of satisfaction in Him.