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“If it were not so I would have told you.”
Those words are very comforting because they imply two things: That He has told us everything we need to know, and that everything He has told us is true.
We are promised full disclosure of everything we need to know. We live in an age of information. Never before has so much information been available to us literally at our fingertips. We can “Google” just about any topic on the internet, and within seconds we have access to probably more than we ever wanted to know about that subject.
But there is a difference between what we need to know and what we think
we should know, what we think we ought to be privy to.
Consider Andrew, one of Jesus’ disciples.
Andrew was Peter’s brother. He was actually the one who brought Peter to meet Jesus. Later, as Jesus walked down the beach, He called Peter and Andrew to follow Him, and they did. Not long after that, Jesus called another set of brothers—John and James, the sons of Zebedee.
Those two sets of brothers were not only acquainted with each other, they worked together; they were partners. And now they were all being called to be fishers of men.
Later on Jesus spent a night in prayer before selecting his twelve apostles. Among those chosen were Peter, Andrew, James, and John. All four were called to be apostles.
But now, as we move forward in time, we see that, “Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.”
Did you notice? Andrew was not with them. I can’t help but wonder… Did Andrew watch Jesus walk away with his brother and his two former fishing associates? And if he did, what was he thinking, feeling? I know what human nature would say—what about me?
There was nothing wrong with Andrew. In his book, Twelve Ordinary Men, John MacArthur writes, “Whenever [Andrew] speaks—which is rare in Scripture—he always says the right thing, not the wrong thing. Whenever he acts apart from the other disciples, he does what is right. Scripture never attaches any dishonor to Andrews actions when it mentions him by name … Whenever his name is expressly mentioned—whenever he rises above the others and acts or speaks as an individual—Scripture commends him for what he does.”
Yet, he was not chosen. In fact, Jesus took only three of His twelve apostles with Him. But Andrew stands out in my mind because of the connection he had with the three that were chosen. Did he struggle with why he was not asked to join Him?
We don’t like that. We want to believe that Christianity is a type of communism where everyone is the same, but here is a clear example where that is not so. And this is where we bow down to His Lordship and learn to accept and be content with what we are given.
The truth is that we are all sinners saved by grace. In that, we are all the same. But where the Master builder chooses to place His living stones is entirely up to Him.
Those who are given the greater privileges are usually those who are called to endure greater pain as well. When James and John came up to Christ asking that they would be granted the privilege of sitting one on His right hand and the other on His left, Jesus replied, “you don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” Pain precedes honor.
When we are tempted to want to know everything or look around and wonder why so and so gets this or that and we don’t, we need to remember Jesus’ reply to Peter after He had forewarned him about how He would die and Peter wanted to know what would happen to John.
Jesus said to him, “What is that to you? You follow me."
-Maria Lund