"Why Jesus?" Part 3

I have been blessed to live through 4 decades, and I can honestly say it gets harder to identify what is real as the years go by. It is crazy because we all want the “real deal,” right? We hate fakeness. Yet in 2020, we live so much of our lives through things that represent what is real more than we experience actual realness. Take friendship for example. Being friends with someone used to mean spending time in their presence. You got to know the sound of their voice and the smell of their home. You shared meals and felt the warmth of their body in a handshake or embrace. It was up close and personal. There was awkwardness you could not prepare for. Flawed moments could not be cropped out or deleted. It was a mutual exchange where you got to know all about them, and they got to know all about you. It took great investment to call someone a friend, and you were fortunate to have 1 or 2 real ones. Today, we can call hundreds, even thousands of people “friend” just by being able to view their pictures and laugh at their funny memes on the internet. One of the most meaningful experiences in life, friendship, has been reduced to include shallow interactions. We claim genuine connection to people we barely know or have never even met. This virtual reality is not a substitute for bonding with people in real life. We need close, deep connections with others to thrive mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. A real friendship with someone who holds your hand, shares your private moments, sees your heart, and understands your life is more fulfilling than ten million “friends” who follow you from a distance.

And this was the dilemma of the first few years of my Christian life. I started reading the Bible at page 1. I read the Old Testament verse by verse, and it was GOOD! I could not get enough of it. I loved reading about God’s invincible power and the miracles He performed. I loved the historic tales of victory for those who belonged to Him. I loved the purity of His character toward justice and mercy. I loved His swagger – how He kept everything and everyone in check, backing up every word He said. I was infatuated with God. He became the ULTIMATE to me. Reading about the things He said and did gave me butterflies. I was in love with the picture of God the Bible painted for me.

I read all the way through the Old Testament, and then I crossed over into the New Testament. Suddenly, God became a man. Jesus. This knocked me off my feet, but not in a good way. I hit a brick wall trying to rationalize how the power and glory of the incomparable God could fit into a real human being. Jesus became a stumbling block for me. It was a hugely private and upsetting struggle. While Christians all around me were praising and praying “in Jesus’ name,” I was praising and praying to God with doubt in my heart as to whether we were talking about the same person. If it was true, I wanted to believe it. I feared misunderstanding God. My heart just would not let it sink in. Nonetheless, I continued reading my Bible.

My life was unknowingly about to take a turn toward some serious trouble. Consequences of sinful decisions, depression, financial woes, and challenges of single parenting confronted me all at once. I began to feel like God, by my fault or His choice, was unwilling to come to my rescue. At the same time, I am still reading about Jesus daily. I see how unstoppable He is in His hands-on mission to be among the people, curing the sick, offering God’s forgiveness to the guilty, providing for the needy, showing compassion to the desperate, setting minds free from torment, and encouraging the brokenhearted. He knew everything about everyone. He was calling them out by name, talking with them about their secret struggles and deepest desires, and offering them abundant life. I began to see that Jesus was doing all the things I needed God to do in my real life. Things that were devastating and way too hard for me, He was handling with just a word or a touch.

One morning, I took my dog for a walk and talked to God. I asked Him to help me truly believe that He became a man, Jesus. I remember that prayer like it was yesterday. “God, I know You hold the key to everything I need, if I can just believe.” Later that morning, I opened my Bible to read it. I was on John chapter 14. I remember how the words came to life as soon as my eyes hit the page. “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me…” As I continued reading the chapter, the more alive Jesus’ words became. Through the voice of His Holy Spirit that day, the Bible transformed from talking about God, to being the voice of God speaking directly to me. That was the day all my knowledge about God and admiration for God became about someone real, someone I knew. Jesus brought God down to earth and made God real to me. Every time I read my Bible after that, I could hear God making preparations for my life, telling me how to do things that pleased Him, and enabling me to see things for what they really were. All the things that seemed so real and important before I knew Jesus somehow became less.

One of the most important things I realized from that day is that fulfillment of our deepest desires cannot do what Jesus can do for us. I asked God to fix all my problems. Instead, He showed me how insignificant my problems were when compared to having a real connection with Him. The things I so badly hoped for meant almost nothing to me when I instead received revelation of Jesus. My “needing” and “wanting” shifted away from the objects of this life and turned toward the One who sustains life. See, we look for contentment in our circumstances. We turn to people, material things, personal success, money, sex, drugs, and so many other things looking for satisfaction, searching for something to feel real. We think those things make life complete. And we continue this endless pursuit because as we obtain those things, something about it feels incomplete – dare I say, fake. The joys, highs, even the moments of great satisfaction and pleasure are fleeting. We always build up a tolerance where we want more because those things are limited in what they can do for us. Not so with God. He is the contentment that never lets us down. His word and touch always lift us higher in Him than we were before. God’s glory never falls flat.

I still need Jesus today as much as I always have. I am grateful that even though He is now seated in Heaven, He left His Holy Spirit to be with me on earth. I am grateful because I need God up close, holding my hand and speaking directly to my heart. I need Him here walking me through every detail of my life as much as I need Him up high overseeing and in control of everything around me. Having freedom, stability, the wisdom to make good decisions, being known and understood, and pursuing everything else that makes life real – those things come through Jesus. The One who was there the whole time, waiting for me to see Him for who He is. God. The Real Deal.

Scripture Reference: John 14, John 5:39-40, John 1:1, John 1:14, John 1:18, John 6:68-69

Read the Welcome! to my Blog - Before the Son.

See why I Write.