“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” — Mark Twain
Not Bothered About Being Bothered
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Matthew 14:14
Here’s the scene. Jesus has just heard that Herod, in a warped sense of duty, has presented the recently severed head of John the Baptist as a birthday present to his stepdaughter, who is also his niece, because his new wife, his brother’s ex, didn’t like John. Yes, it’s complicated. Anyway, upon hearing the news, Jesus took a boat to what He hoped would be a solitary place. However, His hoped-for solitary place was now full of people and, having compassion on them, He healed their sick. Furthermore, if you keep reading, He also performed the miracle we call “Feeding the Five Thousand.”
Okay, here’s that part that bothers me: Jesus wasn’t bothered about being bothered.
Maybe it’s just me, but I know if I had recently found out that a drunken, immoral, quasi-religious dictator had beheaded my cousin, I would want to go away and find a quiet, solitary place to pray and cry and shout out my pain to God. And once getting there, the last thing I’d want to do is minister to a bunch of people who are more interested in themselves than in my pain.
But Jesus doesn’t do that. Instead, He has compassion on them.
The book of Job bothers most people because it never really addresses the issue of why people suffer. However, Job bothers me because it show us that God is more interested in our faith and the final, gold-like qualities of our life than He is in our comfort and pleasure.
Many times throughout the year, men and women would spend a week at the community to see if the monastic lifestyle was something they felt called to embrace. One time a young man came to the community who played the guitar. That wasn’t unusual. We had many guitar players visit the community, often because they were attracted to 
Thinking Out Loud 