“Who is this Jesus?” Even His disciples didn’t know the answer to that question. So let me phrase it this way: “Who is this Jesus for me?”
For me, He is life, strength, a path, my friend and guide. He is someone I never admitted to needing until I reached a point in my life when I realized I was not really in control. I knew there was Someone greater Who could guide me and lead me through this fleshly journey, Someone Who could heal me. Yet I struggled to maintain my control. And all the while His grace and blessing there, waiting patiently for me.
This realization comes to all of us at different times in our lives. It came to me when I hit oh, what do they call it? the wall, the bottom. Whatever the term, it means the end of the illusion that I have it all in control. It came when I thought, “There has to be a better way, a way to lessen the frustration and anxiety of my life, a way to the ‘peace that passes all understanding’” (Phil 3:7). Even though I was a Christian, having the answer within me, I had to find it, to seek and knock.
It amazes me now that I spent so much time on the journey not paying attention, so much time struggling without seeking help. Partly, I am sure, it is because I had been raised in a legalistic Christian atmosphere. All my life, believing in God was more out of fear than of love. I thought that if I was obedient, even out of fear, then He would accept me. I lost out on so much because I was depending on my own perfectionism rather than on His love that has no end. I didn’t understand that He loved me unconditionally. Who has ever been loved unconditionally? No one told me about that kind of love. God loves me for being, not just for doing. And all that time the Spirit was waiting in my heart to help me become the person God wanted me to be!
So who is this Jesus, for me? He’s the person I found at my “wisdom’s” end, when life was ragged and torn, when my anxiety level reached a point of depression and my self-made coping powers didn’t cope. Everything else I tried self-help books, pop psychologists, meditation just didn’t work and I finally turned to Jesus. Yes, He was my last resort. But now He is my first love.
I asked Him into my heart and my life so things would get better. Here’s the eye-opener: “Things” didn’t get better I got better. “Things” and “people” stayed the same, but my willingness, my attitude, my acceptance changed. What was important crystallized and my life moved in a direction that I never knew existed in my selfish tunnel-vision.
It did not get better right away. It took me years to get to the “present moment.” It is a slow process of progress, not perfection. I had to slowly leave behind all the things I had been doing that got me nowhere. The giving up, the surrendering, was in His time. God allows little steps. He gives little gifts, one at a time. He knows that if we were to receive all His grace and He were to correct all our faults at once, we couldn’t handle it. It is progress in His time, not perfection in mine.
If you think you are ready for your own “last resort,” don't put it off. Consider the woman of sixty-seven who wanted to learn to play the piano, but burdened with a negative point of view, said to her friend Pam, “Do you have any idea how old I'll be if I try to learn to play the piano?” Pam answered her, “Yes, the same age you’ll be if you don’t try to learn to play the piano.”
The time is now. He waits at the door of your heart. Open it. Let Him in. It is your turn. Just look and see for yourself Who this Jesus is.
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Jim Connelly and his wife live on the Island of Avalon in Southern New Jersey.