THE TYROCK IRON ORE SCREENS I used to dismantle, repair and re-assemble gave me so much satisfaction once. To set a goal to do a certain amount of work in one shift provided me motivation and enthusiasm to burn. These screens weighed about 10 tonnes but I could have one completely stripped in 8 hours. Afterwards I’d be physically exhausted, spent and bodily sore, but oh, the sense of satisfaction was difficult to deny.
We’ve all felt it when we’ve achieved a ‘job well done.’ There’s that soaking in the moment of satisfaction. The sense of having reached goals is felt. We reflect over our work. If we can see the work in a tangible way, we admire it and possibly think how we might do it better or different next time. We take a moment out in positive reflection. And this is good.
There’s simply a calm satisfaction. And then it is ‘What’s next?’
Recently, in a church service, the Holy Spirit prompted me during Communion. I suddenly tasted a sort of vision whereby I saw Christ hanging from that tree, between two convicted criminals, in the most gruesomely awful, pungent pain--physical and emotio-spiritual pain. But there was more to this particular vision.
Regarding the cross of Christ, we focus too much on the pain aspect at times to the negation of another important matter.
How must Jesus have felt having completed his mission?
In John 19:30, the apostle records for us Jesus’ statement: “It is finished.” The work of sinless art that was his life had at last come to an end; the final brush strokes etched in searing pain, but borne of relief.
I am sure now that Jesus, in the final seconds of his life, might have felt a tinge of very humble satisfaction and deep contentment that his mission was rapidly concluding--in success! Perfectly faithful to the end!
With the enemy defeated overwhelmingly forever and the gospel account almost assuredly completed (not to underplay the resurrection, ascension etc), Jesus should surely have known a strong sense of self-satisfaction having now completed his final living-in-the-flesh work.
I think this is a salient reminder to us in our pained work; no matter how hard things get, when we reach the end goal we too derive the satisfaction of a job well done!
Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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