Death of the Magic 8 Ball

8 Ball
Originally uploaded by somewhere_smiling.

I’m travelling home on the bus as I write this and sitting beside to me is a father and his two children. The dad has just asked his boy to sit down, either on his’ knee where he sat previously, or on the empty seat next to me.

The boy then pulls out his Magic 8 Ball to help him decide. “Should I sit down” he asks the ball as he shakes it vigorously. “Too early to predict” he cries reading from the plastic panel. He shakes it again, asking the question “Should I Sit DOWN!” this time the ball reads “forget about it”.

So much for the 8 Ball’s advice, he now sits perched on the side of the seat happily (or at least loudly) playing snap with the cards his dad brought along for his children’s amusement.

I’m reminded of a saying that one of my teachers in school told us (I can’t remember though if it was a favourite saying of his or if it was a one off quote that stuck) “Advice is what you ask for when you know the answer but wish you didn’t”

This little boy knew what he should be doing. He should have been sitting down as his father, who had his best interests in mind, had told him to do. Instead as a petulant little boy he consulted with an inanimate object, not once but twice, until he got the answer which suited him.

How often I do the same.

Not with a Magic 8 Ball, but most definitely with my prayers and active life. I continue to ask for a different outcome, or ignore the response that God has given me all together. I ask those closest to me what they think, or Google the subject hoping to find alternate wisdom. All the while, my Father, who has my best interests in mind, is watching over me patiently until I submit to what is ultimately right.

I’ve always struggled with that quote of Mr Sondergeld’s. Sometimes because I don’t trust myself to make the right decision and I like the comfort of other’s buy in; other times because I need the courage that comes from knowing others are walking the journey with me. But when it comes down to it, I think that my biggest struggle is when I do know the answer, but like the quote states “wish I didn’t”. When the action means laying down my wants, my dreams, my needs – because my life is not my own at all. There’s power in consultation, in feeling like the decision is mine to make, like I'm justified in my response of disobedience – when that is the most distant thing from the truth.

At the end of the day, my propensity to seek other answers (when like the boy on the bus I know the way to walk) shows how far I am from actually truly laying down my life as a disciple of Christ. Death to self is the only way I’ll ever stop picking up the figurative 8 Ball. As George Muller put it so aptly when asked about his success in helping others (and related in Simon Ponsonby’s book MORE)

“There was a day when I died: died to George Muller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends, and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.”

That’s the challenge. There’s no escaping it: As Bonheoffer states in the Cost of Discipleship “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die”.

It means death to the Magic 8 Ball