Have you ever felt like you were being pulled in two or more directions? Your kids want you to do one thing, your spouse another, and you just want to sit with your feet up and rest for a few minutes. Your boss wants one thing, your conscience is pulling you another direction, and the bills cause you to freeze in indecision.
Life is about competing priorities. Choices are almost never simple. At least the choices I have had to make in my life have not been simple ones. And those I have talked to over these many years share a similar sense of the complexity of the choices we must make. This is a universal issue and I think it is an issue related to the sin nature we have inherited from the first sinners, Adam & Eve. Our inability to hear the voice of God clearly began when we were kicked out of the Garden.
There is the image in Western culture of the person with two small versions of the self sitting on each shoulder, one giving good, healthy advice and one giving evil, wicked advice. The one aspires to lift self and others. The other gives voice to the worst of human thought and intention. The first creates great art, music, culture, relationships, and societies. The second creates destruction, chaos and anarchy. The first recognizes that life doesn’t belong to us, that it is on loan. The second lives with the notion that they are owed everything by everyone else. The first is other centered. The second is self centered.
Our text gives us the ultimate second little man. This man has a large number of demons inside him pulling him in multiple directions. The term legion refers to the Roman military unit of about 6000 soldiers. It was powerful and unstoppable. No wonder this man was in the state he was in. No matter how hard the man tried, the demons overpowered his will.
Jesus arrives on the beach after a night of turmoil. Suddenly a man runs up to him, falls on his knees in front of Him and begins shouting the reality of Jesus’ deity and of His power to judge. Jesus asks the man his name. Jesus reaches out in one of the simplest of human kindnesses. He wants to know with whom He is dealing and with whom He will have a relationship. Our name is the beginning point, the entry into us as a person. Even if we don’t like our name, speaking our name starts the process of getting to know us. And Jesus asks this man his name.
But instead of the man being able to answer, the demons jump in and force him to speak their identity. There must have been one demon who was the spokesperson, for he says “my name” rather than “our names.” He then acknowledges the many others who are there as well by saying “we” are many. He begs on behalf of all the demons. Do you hear the competing voices, like the little people on the shoulder?
The demons have become comfortable with their situation. They have a host who doesn’t put up too much resistance. They have the run of the cemetery and enough to keep them occupied. So they want things to stay the way they are. They don’t want judgment cramping their style.
Have you allowed the evil in your life to have its way? Perhaps it is time to allow Jesus to have His way to a greater degree.
The Arnold Journey 