The Cost of Kneeling/Mark 10:17-22…
He had been watching Jesus from a distance all morning, weighing the question that had kept him awake for months. Every sermon from the synagogue left him restless. Every commandment he kept—and he kept them all—only deepened the gnawing sense that something was missing.
Now Jesus was leaving. If he was going to ask, it had to be now.
His hand moved to straighten his expensive cloak—a habit when he was nervous. People knew him in this town. Respected him. A young man of means and impeccable religious observance. What would they think if they saw him—
He pushed through the crowd before he could finish the thought.
"Teacher!" His voice came out louder than he intended.
Jesus turned.
The moment stretched. Everyone was watching now. He could feel their eyes—the same people who nodded respectfully when he passed in the marketplace, who knew his family's reputation, who saw him in the synagogue every Sabbath.
His knees buckled before he realized what he was doing.
I'm kneeling. In the dirt. In front of everyone.
The ground was hard beneath his knees. Dust settled on his fine clothing. But the question—the question that had been burning in his chest for months—came tumbling out: "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Pause here. What just happened?
A wealthy young man of high social standing just knelt in the dirt before an itinerant rabbi. In his culture, this wasn't casual respect—this was the posture of desperate seeking. Men of his position didn't kneel publicly. They didn't expose vulnerability. They didn't risk their carefully maintained dignity for questions they could have asked privately.
What does his behavior tell you?
Something inside him was powerful enough to override every social calculation, every concern about appearance. The question mattered more than his reputation.
Jesus looked at him, and something in that gaze made his heart pound. "Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone."
Then Jesus began listing commandments. "You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal..."
"Teacher," he interrupted, the words rushing out, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."
It was true. Every single one. He wasn't boasting—he was confessing his desperation. I've done everything right. Why does it still feel like something's missing?
Jesus looked at him, and Mark's gospel says something remarkable: Jesus loved him.
Then came the words that would send him away grieving: "One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
The young man's face fell. He stood slowly, backing away from Jesus, from the crowd, from the question that had driven him to his knees.
Notice what Jesus did.
He didn't dismiss the young man's seeking. He didn't rebuke him for asking. He recognized genuine spiritual hunger—hunger strong enough to overcome social barriers—and He honored it by addressing the real issue.
The young man walked away sad, but he didn't walk away unchanged. Jesus had named the obstacle between him and eternal life. The question now was what the young man would do with that truth.
The Blue Line Moment: What Jesus Saw That We Often Miss
This is a textbook Blue Line moment—the kind my book The Blue Line trains you to recognize.
Most people in that crowd saw a wealthy young ruler. A man who had it all together. Someone who didn't need anything, least of all spiritual help.
But Jesus saw past the expensive cloak to the posture underneath it.
The young man wasn't just asking a theological question—he was displaying the unmistakable signs of spiritual openness:
He took a social risk. Men of his status didn't kneel publicly. The fact that he did it anyway meant the internal pressure had become greater than the external cost.
He asked during a narrow window. "Jesus was leaving." He had been watching, weighing, waiting—until the urgency overrode his hesitation. Spiritual openness often comes with a time limit.
He was dissatisfied despite "success." "All these I have kept since I was a boy"—yet here he was, on his knees, still seeking. Outward compliance was no longer enough. The restlessness itself was a form of readiness.
He made his hunger visible. In a culture of religious performance, he admitted incompleteness. "What must I do?" Translation: "What I'm doing isn't working."
Jesus didn't create this openness. He recognized it—and responded to it with perfect precision.
This is what The Blue Line teaches you to do: spot the moments when someone's spiritual hunger becomes strong enough to override their normal defenses.
Jesus saw a Blue Line moment—genuine spiritual openness—and met it with exactly what the man needed to hear. He honored the seeking by addressing the real issue. The young man walked away sad, but he walked away with truth. Jesus planted a seed that day, even if the harvest came later.
What if we learned to see people the way Jesus did? Not just their exteriors—the wealth, the status, the appearance of having it all together—but their postures, their questions, the restlessness that drives them to take unexpected risks?
The rich young ruler teaches us two things:
Spiritual openness can appear in the most unexpected people. Wealth, status, and religious performance are often masks for deep spiritual hunger.
Recognizing the Blue Line moment means having the courage to speak the truth it requires. Jesus loved him enough to name the real obstacle, even knowing it might send him away.
Your opportunity, as someone learning to see Blue Line moments, is to become like Jesus in this story: attentive to the signals of genuine seeking, brave enough to engage when you see them, and loving enough to tell the truth even when it's costly.