ericfaisonstory

In order to walk closely with Jesus I must make it a habit of looking for him, knowing where he is, and being aware of his movements.

Paying attention allows me to see and hear more clearly. I must use every option I have to remove unnecessary distractions that keep me from seeing and hearing…that is, if seeing and hearing Jesus is what I really want. (I usually always do what I really want, no matter what I say I really want)

I spoke to group of nearly one hundred college students who were packed inside a living room. We were talking about why it is sometimes hard to hear the voice of Jesus…

I asked everyone in the room to start talking out loud to one another. Then I begin to speak the words, “I love you. Come to me and I will give you rest for your souls. If you are thirsty, come to me and drink. I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly. Let me speak words of truth to you. Let me tell you how beautiful, unique, and wonderfully made you are. I long for your companionship. You are mine. I have deep affection for you. I have given you a name: ‘Beloved’.”

After getting everyone to calm down and refocus, I asked if anyone could repeat the words I said. Not one single person could repeat even one word.

And so it is too often similar with our companionship with Jesus. He continues to speak, yet I too often find myself too preoccupied, distracted, and drowning in noise and activity to be in a place to hear anything he has to say.

For one thing, we can’t seem to ever put our damn phones down. We stare at them as if the life we are looking for is deeply buried inside the case.

Other times, I get busy doing things that are good things…Jesus things. Yet once you get involved in that 4th or 5th “Christian” thing…even it can become an obstacle to hearing Jesus. Do we really need to be involved in five small groups?

Ministry, if that is my primary focus, can distract me from Jesus too. Jesus must be the focus. Nothing else.

Am I in a position to hear him? Am I listening? Am I paying attention? Am I creating space…availability…so that if He does whisper….I hear it?

Jesus never became a Christian nor asked anyone else to become one. He didn’t come to start a new religion called Christianity.

Jesus came to draw all people to himself. There is no other name under heaven in which men can be saved. No work in the New Testament was ever performed under the banner or name of Christianity, it was performed “in the name” of Jesus.

Jesus is always the message.
It is a dangerous business to point others to anything other than Jesus. Let us beware of pointing others to a ministry, organization, speaker, author, pastor, or a specific church. Instead let us point people to the only name under all the heavens in which people may be saved and find meaningful, overflowing life: Jesus.

“If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.” (Jesus)

“There have been some who were so occupied with spreading Christianity they never gave a thought to Christ.” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)

“We know nothing of religion here; we only think of Christ.”(C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)

What is a Christian?

It is a person in whom Christ dwells. Christ in you. It means that you have a personal intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. You have believed and put your faith in Christ as your Savior. It means your allegiance and loyalty is completely placed in Jesus. And your new identity is now found in Christ. It is no longer found in the world’s systems.

This means you are no longer measured by the world’s standards:

• You’re smart because you make good grades
• Funny because people laugh
• Popular because people want to be around you
• Valuable because someone needs you
• Loved because you are or do something that causes you to be lovable
• Invited to stay as long as you are adequate or satisfy the demands and expectations of others.
• You are a employee because you meet the goals, hit the numbers, show growth, produce results.
• You are a good _____  because you ______

This is what it’s like to be under the world’s systems. But now, in Christ, this no longer applies to you. Is that true for you? Or do you find yourself returning to that old destructive, exhausting system of evaluating yourself, the success/failure of your work, the value of your relationships with others?

Now, in Christ, your value, identity, purpose, adequacy, ability, etc. is NOW completely found in Christ. The world no longer has any say in all of this. It has no authority to label and evaluate you. The challenge we have is we must decide with system will live under:

(1) The world’s system…OR the

(2) system, the light yoke and the easy burden of the Christ…which states you are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. Long before you ever did anything to deserve it…or earn it…It is given and placed upon you as a member of the Family.

You are my beloved son/daughter. With whom I am well pleased.  Is that you? Do you believe this? I know, of course you do. But I’m asking you to believe it with your heart, not necessarily intellectually. Do you believe it in the depths of your soul?

Currently, I am understanding more and more that the goal of my life is about intimacy with Jesus. It is Jesus; nothing more than that. So, I long to make Jesus the focal point of my life with all other things being an outflow of that relationship.

And when I’m in his presence there is no cause for hurry because when I am with him, his timing his perfect and he is faithful. Jesus has promised to finish everything he started by in me and in the world.

It is about following Jesus. It’s always been about Jesus, nothing more. I have discovered it is simpler than I once thought. Once I realized that all Jesus wanted was me and not what I could do for him, I became free to love him.

Frustrated with myself, I thought of my past years spent trying to give God what he already had; or perhaps even unintentionally, trying in some hidden way, to impress him. My life felt like it had been spent trying to offer water to a fish that existed in the depths of the ocean’s infinite waters.

I wonder how many of us, who are believers, spend our time and energy trying to impress God with our trinkets and offerings.

To think that Jesus needs me or is dependent on me…that’s crazy talk. Or if the reason He created me was because he needed me to do something for him…

If that were so, it would be the same as if I said the reason my wife and I had kids was because we needed help around the house with chores. For one, it’s hard as hell to get teenagers to do chores. God would probably say the same thing about me if he were depending on me to be faithful or reliable…if he was in need of me to do his “Christian” chores.

God did not create me for what I can do for him.

God created me to be uniquely me.

God created me for relationship. Me and God. Period.

…and he loves me deeply for who I am and not what I do.

I am writing this blog…somewhat reluctantly. I honestly didn’t want to do it…or to give anyone the idea that I think I have something so important to say about anything. But a few close friends have bullied me and harassed me to do it. So, in order to get them to shut up and leave me alone, I said I’d do it for a few months and then prove to them that it wasn’t worth it. It’s a waste of time. The world does not need another blog.

So, as I have been thinking about the things I want to write, it became clear to me that I stand on the shoulders of giants. If I have anything to say that sounds profound or insightful, it is primarily because of Jesus, the giver of all things. It is not my intention to appear profound. My hope is that you might get a fresh view of Jesus and might find some encouragement, that you think about some things you’ve never considered, or even get pissed off and irritated. Feeling something is better than feeling nothing; right?

Secondly, it is because I know very well it is because other people who love Jesus shared their lives with me. Those people were kind enough to let me hang around and walk beside them. They taught me not only in word but also in deed. They showed me how to follow Jesus by simply inviting me to tag along with them as they lived their life. So, whatever I have to say is merely a mixture of all that others have poured into me. All the ideas on this platform, I want to pass on to you with the hope that it will encourage you in your companionship with Jesus and with others.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus.

At the end of the day, if God is for us…with us…in us. Who, then can be or stand against us? Who can intervene or screw up this truth? No one. Nothing. No thing.

Nothing…not…   

 

The loss of your job

Another month of wondering if you can make that payment

A divorce or the one you love calling it quits and walking out

The feeling of being a failure as a parent or spouse

Your struggle with depression or anxiety

The feeling that you are not pretty enough

When you believe the lie that you don’t have what it takes

If you are paralyzed by whatever the future holds—the uncertainty or lack of knowing.

That friend who has turned their back on you…again.

Whatever you are feeling right now…that is waging war against your soul…no, not even that that can displace or separate you from the love of Jesus.

And at the end of the day…the love of Jesus is what we really want…it’s what we really need.

If only I…if only we could truly believe that this is enough.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.

I lack nothing.

He leads me

He refreshes my soul

He guides me.

I will not fear.

Jesus is WITH me.

Nothing can separate us.

Jesus goes up to a mountain and sits down. Great crowds come to him and press in around him. Many were pushing and wrestling, wedging their way through the crowd. Inside of these great crowds were the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others. Those who had brought these people put them at the feet of Jesus, and they are made well. As a result the crowd was utterly astounded…almost nervously shaken and thinking through what exactly they have gotten mixed up in. Who is this man who has this ability!? They stood there in wonder.

won-der / n. /

the emotion of being astounded or surprised.

The feeling of being awe-inspired by an extraordinary act.

I wonder what it is they wondered about. What caused them to wonder? They began to wonder when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they glorified God.

The mute began to talk.
The crippled and the lame were made healthy and were walking.
The blind began to see.

What did the mute say once they found the ability to speak?
What did the crippled and lame do once they found the ability to walk and run?
What did the blind want to look at when they realized they could see?

Am I still in wonder of Jesus?

Do I still wonder in general?

Am I still amazed that I have the ability to speak words, to walk and run, or to see? Or have I forgotten? Am I not impressed anymore?

The answer is determined by what I say…where I walk…and what I take the time to look at.

The question: “what matters?” grabs hold of the deepest parts of our hearts and refuses to let go. It is such a direct question that it can be paralyzing. It does not swerve to the right or to the left, but gets right to the matter of first importance. Squaring up like a gunfighter at twenty paces in the middle of a dusty western street, it does not flinch. It does not blink, but stands there in the high noon sun staring you down, awaiting your response. He will stand there as long as it takes.

He is relentless and urges us to dig down through the exterior of things. Why? It is to find out what’s under the surface layers of life. Go ahead, grab a shovel. Dig.

Who knows? Perhaps, you might stumble upon a treasure buried in a field, and if you do, then you must quickly decide if you are willing to sell everything you have in order to buy the field.

To do all things in the name of Jesus–to do all things as if I were doing them for Jesus alone—yes, this would make all the difference.

If every activity were done for Jesus instead of for ourselves, it would cause all of our activities to become holy acts of worship. Rather than selfish, they become selfless. With this view, all things become spiritual, no matter if they are big or small, glorious or menial.

The line between Christian activity and a secular activity no longer exists; because a follower of Jesus knows that he does nothing for (to please) himself or others. Rather, he does all things for Jesus, as if every act is done for Jesus. To Him belong all things, great or small—things menial and simple as well as heroic and complex. It is this kind of thinking that allows us to follow in His footsteps and frees us to be a servant of all.

To see every task or activity as an offering of worship to Jesus, the most humble and dreaded task can become holy ground. The scrubbing of pots and pans, the changing of a diaper, picking up trash becomes as spiritual as leading a worship service, preaching a sermon, or writing a book about Jesus.

Coaching a baseball team is not more spiritual than leading a Bible study because the focus shifts from the activity itself to the reason for doing it and to the one it is done for in the first place.

To live this way, it means to change the way we think—about everything. All things become different. Old ways become new ways. Now, the new wine can be poured into new wineskins.

Worthless things become valuable. The excluded, the outcasts become included—they become family. The unlovable become loved. The guilty become innocent. The imprisoned are set free and the burdened are relieved of their heavy load.

Our view of all of creation becomes eternal. CS Lewis wrote that every person you meet is an eternal being. They will live forever, with the only difference being where they spend it.

I continue to wonder why it is difficult to get together with no agenda. Perhaps it is a symptom of our culture and the way we choose to live.

I challenge you to try this: go ask someone to meet you for coffee and when they respond, “What’s up? What do you want to meet about?” Say “Nothing really, just want to catch up and spend some time with you and hear more about what is going on in your life.” Then wait for the person to come out of shock. It’s the absurdity of having a meeting with no agenda; to meet and have absolutely nothing to accomplish. What a waste of time! Unhurried time spent with another person with nothing to accomplish and to meet without the intent of getting something from them is considered by many to be a waste.

“What a waste!” was the phrase that shot out of Judas’ mouth when the prostitute came into the Pharisees’ house and broke the alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over Jesus’ head. “Why this waste! That perfume could have been sold and given to the poor!” The religious guys thought, “Man, I don’t think Jesus knows who is touching him, and surely if he did, he would condemn her.” However, what is often thought of as a waste, things unproductive or useless can possibly the very things Jesus values.

I argue that it is time spent with another person with absolutely no agenda that could actually be the best use of our time. It’s difficult for us to find this time together. To find this time to sit and talk with no need to hurry; no need to feel like the time is being wasted, and to not feel like there are other things more important.

I encourage you and I to “waste” more time with people.

” … Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized — wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness. “– Martin Luther King Jr. Feb. 4, 1968

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
–Helen Keller

I watch two little boys ride their bikes down the hill in front of my house. One of them is older, perhaps eight years old, and the other looks to be six. The older boy rides down the hill fearlessly and with confidence. Fast. Steady. His t-shirt violently flaps in the wind. It’s obvious that he has conquered this hill countless times before.

The younger boy goes next. His bike looks new and slightly big for him. His helmet is tilted a little to one side but he will surely grow into it over the next couple of years. He rides down the hill slower, yet he would never define what he is doing safe, comfortable, or routine. He’s more cautious. Rather shaky. His eyes are intensely focusing ahead as the concrete whizzes below his feet. He refuses to look to the right or to the left. He dares not blink. His knuckles are apple red from squeezing the handle bars so tight. Tighter as he lets off the brakes and picks up speed. Both legs stop pedaling because they simply can’t keep up. He holds on for his life until the street flattens out and he coasts to a halt. He stops and circles around; his toes touching the ground. Tilting his helmet back he wipes off the sweat and proclaims victory over the hill. Then, it’s back to the top. The process is repeated over and over again. I keep wondering when they’ll tire out, but the fatigue doesn’t seem to be able to catch up to them.

Of course there are risks and there is danger. The wheel could turn slightly. Balance could move too far to one side or the other. Control could be lost. Yes, there are risks and they know it. They have the scars—the battle wounds to prove it. Yet the boys go down again and again anyway. For them it is the thrill of the ride and the hunger for adventure that is the catalyst to return to the top of the hill. Adrenaline is pumping, their eyes are as big as silver dollars, and the wind is in their faces.

Here they come again.

Going second is the younger brother. It is the fearless wonder of a child and the courageous willingness to risk it all for the sake of the ride.

Leaving the crowds behind, Jesus and his companions set out in a boat and are crossing over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus sleeps. On this particular night the waters would awaken into a fury strong enough to convince these seasoned Galilean fishermen that they wouldn’t live to see the morning.

In the middle of the night, a gust of wind descends on the lake announcing the storm hot on its tail. The wind and the waves shake and hammer the boat filling it to the sinking point. After exhausting every possible way to save themselves, they come to the realization that they can do nothing. They are at the end of their rope; out of options. Finally, they awaken the sleeping Nazarene; the very thing they should have done from the start.

“Teacher! Do you not care that we are going to drown!?” Jesus wipes the sleep from his eyes and stands up in the middle of the fishing boat and exclaims loudly, “Quiet! Peace! Be still!” Then the wind and the wave retreat and the waters become completely calm. The storm exits as quickly as it entered.

The companions in the boat with Jesus are terrified and begin to murmur to one another, “Who is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

What a great question: Who is this man named Jesus?

The boys on the bikes probably felt the same way these companions of Jesus felt. Their hearts pounding, shirts soaking in sweat, knuckles sore from the fight. Terrified, yet at the same time something inside of them whispers that this is what it means to be alive. Not merely physically or scientifically alive, but alive at the center of the soul’s core.

I strongly believe that if those Galilean fishermen were given the choice to go back in time and either avoid the storm or live through it, they would unanimously have chosen to live through it with Jesus than to have lived the alternative: a safe, calm, and tame passage to the other side of the lake. A safe and routine passage would have never made it into the archives of long term memory. It would have been tagged and filed down with the other life events that were labeled boring, familiar, or predictable.

But as these men followed Jesus, they would anchor themselves to what they had seen and heard, and it would provide them with faith and courage to continue following him in spite of the danger. This is the type of life that makes a tame and predictable world uncomfortable. Yet, at the same time, to those who are hungry and thirsty for real and true life, this is the type of life that is attractive and that those who are life-seekers yearn to live.

Every one of us expends endless amounts of time and energy to construct a life without surprises, discomfort, and danger. However, I really think that there is a side of us that stares out the window at the two little boys screaming down the hill on their bikes and, if even for a second, thinks about going out into the garage and pulling our own bikes out of storage, dust them off, and give it a whirl. Do you? I sure do.

I have a hunch that many of us believe that following Jesus is primarily about avoiding bad behavior and learning to be a nice person; smiling no matter what and giving the appearance that we are in better shape than we truly are. There is an inaccurate view of a person who follows Jesus. There is more to following Jesus than to be nice, polite, well behaved, and having it all together.

People who encountered Jesus usually had two distinct responses: anger or astonishment. For instance many of the religious leaders often became angry. It’s interesting to not that, for the most part, the only people Jesus had an issue with were the religious leaders. For one they were jealous because the crowds left them to go after Jesus. It was bad for business and attacked their pride. They were constantly on the lookout to find a way to get rid of him altogether, which they eventually did; or thought they did. The others who encountered Jesus were often left astonished, speechless, and on numerous occasions, terrified.

Now that’s an odd reaction that you don’t see much of as you watch people who describe themselves as Christians: terrified. Read the gospels and look for it. Look for the way the crowds reacted when Jesus touched the scaly and oozing skin of the leper, or made spit and wiped it in the blind man’s eyes. When he stopped a funeral procession, walked up and touched a coffin and told the dead boy to get up. Another time he overturned the merchant’s tables in the temple who were looking to make a dollar off of God. Jesus confronted a Legion of demons and sent them into a herd of pigs which turned and ran off the side of a cliff. Notice the reaction of the crowd when they watched a man named Lazaras, who had been dead for four days, stumble out of a tomb wrapped in burial cloth. Terror seemed to be a common emotion associated with followers of Jesus.

And so I am pushed to ask myself, “When was the last time I was terrified because of Jesus or something Jesus is doing in or around me? When was the last time I became terrified because of something Jesus is asking or has asked me to do?” What about you? How would you answer those questions?

Following Jesus is anything but tame, nice, safe, clean, comfortable, and convenient. It is wild, rough around the edges, dangerous, messy, edgy, and inconvenient. It seems it should be more thrilling than many of us make it out to be. Perhaps is should be. Perhaps it needs to be.

Perhaps watching those two little kids fly down the street in front of my house is a more accurate resemblance of what it should feel like to relentlessly and passionately pursue Jesus the Nazarene. Life with Jesus is either a daring adventure which is full of life, holy terror, and unpredictability or, if not, it can easily become a lifeless routine full of knowledge gathering, suffocating rules, and oppressive behavioral standards.

Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted. On this trip I think we should notice it, explore it a little, to see if in that strange separation of what man is from what man does we may have some clues as to what the hell has gone wrong in this twentieth century. I don’t want to hurry it. That itself is a poisonous twentieth century attitude. When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. I just want to get at it slowly, but carefully and thoroughly…” (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig)

Whatever (or whomever) is present and with us can often be far away. We can’t seem to get our leg up and over this one. It’s too high–this fence of distraction and hurry that stands between us and those we are with or what we may be trying to do at any given moment.

I have watched others. I have watched myself. I’ve dug below the first layers of dirt only to find the fossils of those ancient beasts that once roamed the earth. I’ve come to the conclusion that an uninterrupted conversation–an unhurried conversation–an undistracted conversation; well, they are all but extinct. Fragments remain. You can put them together and faintly make out what once was.

Can you remember the last time you were talking to someone and they gave you their full, undivided attention? They weren’t in a hurry, they didn’t interrupt, they weren’t looking around, or checking their phone?

I wonder if we lack the awareness of the value of the holy ground—those holy gifts that lay at our feet (people…friendships) At most we trip over them, much less see them or stop to pick them up. I’m talking about people. God gives us each other for the journey…to laugh, cry, fight, love, help each other along-carrying one another’s burdens. One another is what God has given us but if you’re like me, I don’t always understand, grasp it, or recognize it. I’m usually in a hurry…too many things to do.

It isn’t until something is gone that we notice it is missing. Then we realize how rich, precious, beautiful, and uniquely common it truly was. We live alongside of others all this time and then one day they are gone or moved away …or we are gone. And we would do anything to have the time back. What do we need to do to live fully in the moment with others around us?

Do you find it difficult to simply be in the place that God has you? Do you always wish to be somewhere else, even if you are not so sure where that “somewhere else” is? Do you find yourself hurrying even when there is absolutely no need to hurry?

Do you have a tendency to take the friendships and people around you right now for granted or neglect them for other things, probably not as important?

“…whoever makes haste with his feet misses the way.” (King Solomon)

In Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, one of the characters, Emily, dies.

Afterwards, Emily stands unseen in the cemetery among her deceased relatives and begs the Stage Manager to let her go back and live one more day. After much pleading, the Stage Manager relents and allows her to return to live one more day. She chooses her birthday.

Emily has discovered that she had taken so much of her life for granted and so she goes back to live it differently. And in those hours she comes to the unfortunate conclusion that lives are lived in the blurriness of a wasteful fog. Everyone seems to be in a hurry. Everyone seems to miss one another as they live their lives together. She goes through that day until she can’t take it anymore.

“In a loud voice to the stage manager.

Emily: I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes too fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.

She breaks down sobbing.

I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back—up the hill—to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look.

Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

She looks towards the stage manager and asks abruptly, through her tears:

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?

Stage Manager: No.

Pause.

The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.”

I want to be like the saints and poets. I want to see what / who is right in front of me and not take it for granted. I want to live more slowly. I want to live with depth.

—Don’t you?

Let us realize life while we live it–every, every minute.

In the red circle of the desert, in the dark and secret place, the prophet discovers the obvious things. I do not say it merely as a sneer, for obvious things are very easily forgotten; and indeed every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things. (GK Chesterton)

Some things that were never planned turn out to be the best gifts in life. Spontaneity is quickly something that we’d rather squeeze out of our days. Unexpected visitors or phone calls are seen more as interruptions to our plans than as a welcomed guest. Humanity likes order and disorder is seen as negative.

Yet as we seek to follow Jesus and as we ask him to guide and lead us, I wonder if we should more and more look for the things that we never expected or intended to see; to learn to be open and hospitable to things not planned for.

Life can be as unexpected as walking outside only to find a flower growing in a crack in the sidewalk. It shouldn’t be there. This is obvious. Nobody planted it. No one tilled the ground, watered or fertilized it. It wasn’t matched to the color of the surrounding houses, nor does it fall into sequence with other plants in the area. It is not native; this flower does not fit into some organized, elaborate landscape design. The experts of Southern Living magazine were not consulted. It’s just there. And it shouldn’t be.

It reminds me that life can emerge out of broken places. Life can appear when it is least expected and the vehicles that bring it can be the least likely; the ones we never imagined.

This sidewalk runs through this old neighborhood in the historic district of this pre-civil war town in the deep South. It is marked with finely manicured lawns, raised flower beds which all fit into a highly detailed and complicated color scheme. Trees that are hundreds of years old shoot up from the ground; tin soldiers standing guard along the street.

Full of pride and arrogance, the landscaped flowers stand in perfect order and seem to taunt the flower appearing from the cracks. As if to say, ‘you should not be here. This place is not for you. You are not one of us. You do not belong.’ Akin to a stray mix bred puppy found playing and running around with a group of pure bred black labs.

Four little girls are riding their scooters up and down the sidewalk in front of the houses. As if written into a script, one of the little girls brings her scooter to a halt; laying it down to one side, cautiously and carefully. She approaches the unexpected discovery: the flower that shouldn’t be there. The other girls curiously gather to look as if to be captured by the beauty and unexpectedness of it all. For an eternity, they soak in the gift and wonder of it all; like a man who accidentally finds a treasure buried in his field.

The children don’t notice the professional landscaping, their wonder and attention has been captured by this unexpected visitor. The professional landscaping is too planned; too perfect. It lacks the wildness of life. Sometimes, when our lives are too planned and organized nothing has a chance to catch us by surprise. Everything becomes routine. Our days become safe. It’s all the same. We find we are living in Pleasantville, an inhabitant of the Truman Show. I find it difficult to get excited about knowing how everything in my day will turn out. I don’t want to spend my life in a predictable monotony of sameness and familiarity.

Routine causes our days to lose their profundity and extraordinariness. Monotony transforms colors into gray. Too much familiarity keeps us from seeing. It keeps us from seeing each other and keeps us from seeing what is right there in front of us. We can often stop looking and noticing all together because we have seen it all before. As a result, we miss the flower growing out of the crack in the sidewalk.

Michelangelo gave us one of his best when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Yet as a sculptor, the statue of David stands as a masterpiece.

The marble statue of David stands seventeen feet tall and the shepherd who would turn king as he contemplates his upcoming battle with Goliath, the giant. The tension is clearly defined in his face and the muscles of his forearms and fists. Michelangelo brings the rock to life and almost makes us believe there is a soul within the statue.

It is said that Michelangelo could see David within the block of marble long before he took up his tools. He would take raw, monstrous blocks of rock and then he would begin to simply sit and look within the stone. Slowly, without hurry, he would begin to chip away, scratch, chisel, and hammer until what remained was what he had seen all along. The image invisible to everyone who was not him. He was able to look past the block of marble. Perhaps, he never even saw the block of marble at all. Knowing what it was he clearly saw, he began to chisel and chip off all that was not that image.

The Pope, amazed and in awe of the statue of David, asked him how he did it, how he came up with such a magnificent work of sculpture. Michelangelo replied, “I chip away at everything that is not David.”

Paul wrote that he had resolved in his mind to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Could this be a worthy aim for us who are believers? What is it in our life that distracts us from Jesus? What are the impurities that need to be melted away? What are pieces of marble that need to be chipped away to reveal only the thing that matters? Did we once begin with the pure image only to add a bunch of extras? Have we dressed up Jesus and added anything to him? Are there any “good” and even ‘Christian’ pursuits or activities that have gotten in the way? Can we even see him anymore?

Just as Michelangelo chipped away at everything that was not David, perhaps we should begin to chip away at everything that is not of first importance; that is not Jesus. In my own life I want to do this, until Jesus becomes my primary desire; until he is all that I see. I want to purge all of the man-made religious tradition from my life. Christ alone.

“…simply concentrate on being completely devoted to Christ in your hearts…”[1]

I read these words by Henri Nouwen today. They are worth reading:

“It is remarkable how easy it is to bless others, to speak good things to and about them, to call forth their beauty and truth, when you yourself are in touch with your own blessedness. The blessed one always blesses. And people want to be blessed! This is so apparent wherever you go. No one is brought to life through curses, gossip, accusations, or blaming. There is so much taking place around us all the time. And it calls forth only darkness, destruction, and death. As the “blessed ones,” we can walk through this world and offer blessings. It doesn’t require much effort. It flows naturally from our hearts. When we hear within ourselves the voice calling us by name and blessing us, the darkness no longer distracts us. The voice that calls us the Beloved will give us words to bless others and reveal to them that they are no less blessed than we.”

“Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God….”[1]

That was all that was said about Enoch: he “walked with God.” I want to be known for that above all other things. I want others to think of me in that way rather than what I have accomplished or for what I have accumulated. My greatest hope is to be identified as a companion of Jesus and to have been known as someone who ‘walked with God.’

One day a 6th grade boy at the church I am a part of, wrote me a note. He wrote it with a crayon. It read, “Mr. Eric, Thank you for being a part of my life. I can see the Jesus inside of you.”

That note is going to be kept close as long as I live. It is more accredited than the degree from my college and seminary, written on fine parchment with near perfect hand writing and headed by an embossed gold emblem from the institution of “higher learning.”

“Go and make a careful search for the child.” —King Herod

Although, these statements were made with evil intentions, they do have something to say to us. Those words are worth listening to. And I think they may even be more relevant to us today. “Go and make a careful search for the child.”

The same goes with our lives. Some of us need to go and make a careful search for our lives. The life we are leading may not be the life you had dreamed of. You may even smirk at the thought of even calling what you are doing a life. You may not feel like what you are doing is living. Perhaps it feels more like survival, struggle, or just getting through the day. A life lived simply to survive is no life lived at all. A day lived with the hopes of just getting through it and putting it behind you is no day worth living.

How do we move from simply surviving the day to living a life that is fully alive? And what does that even mean? Our culture has become more and more saturated with the idea of living a life that is fully alive. And I think the reason for that is that more and more people are realizing that they are a good ways from doing so. It’s as if we have all been awakened to the fact that we are living a pace of life that is killing us. We are distracted and hurried at every turn. There is no peace. There is no stillness. There is no life. We are learning this. And in this learning we are beginning to declare louder and louder that we want off this wheel. We want out of this race of rats.

There are too many times when life passes us by and we never realize it. We become preoccupied with other things that we have been distracted by. All the while life moves by and we don’t realize it. We have become enamored and curious about fake life. Instead-of-life. We value the things that are worthless and choose to sell all we have to acquire those things that are leaky vessels, at best. The life we want, we’ve caught glimpses of it. We know it is there. Our soul has sensed its presence.

The life we are looking for is tied tightly to the person of Jesus.   Jesus was the Master of living life. Nobody lived life like Jesus did. And if we are going to find life, I’d suggest we start looking a little more closely for Jesus. Not Christianity, not religion, not morality, but looking for Jesus.   It is not about learning to smile no matter what or to try to be as nice as you can be. If following Jesus is about learning to smile and be nice all the time. I am not interested. Following Jesus is about life and life is about Jesus. Jesus is life. The life we desire so desperately is wrapped up in the person of Jesus.

And it’s not simply the idea of Jesus that we need, or even only the correct beliefs about him. The core of what we need is found in the companionship…a companionship with Jesus. A with-ness. Jesus chose the twelve that they might be with him. It is being with Jesus that is the source of the life we want.

Like Mary and Joseph realizing that Jesus was not with them, they went back to look for him. It had only been one day. For some of us it has been longer than a day since we last saw Jesus, or even thought about him. For some of us it has been days, months, years, or even entire lifetimes.

In the rushing flow of our days. In all of the noise, busyness, and productivity of life, maybe we just forgot about him. And one day you look up and consider the distance between the two of you. How long has it been for you since you last noticed the presence of Jesus in your life? Perhaps you should leave and hurry back to Jerusalem and search for him.

Hurry. Run! There is no time to lose.

Still, there are some of us that have realized our need to return to Jerusalem and find Jesus, and we go back in search of him. But instead of finding Jesus, we become distracted by other things on our way. Or, we go back and only find religious routine and we pack it up neatly and bring it back with us, only to realize we have grabbed the wrong guy. Perhaps we grabbed ‘ministry’ instead of Jesus, or confused the two, as if they were the same.

Keep it simple. Have a companionship…a deep, intimate, friendship with Jesus. Walk and talk with him as you go…as you “walk along the road” of your day. It happens in the journey. It wasn’t meant to be divided into a 30 minutes segment of your day and then you’re off to do your thing. Go with Jesus. In your mind’s eye, imagine he is right there with you (and if you know him…he is), he is sitting next to you in your car, he is waiting in line at the store with you, he is with you as you work, etc. The main thing is just talk to him. Tell him about it…whatever is on your mind…tell him. Then listen for what he might say back.

Imagine that you are in a crowded place. Suddenly you realize your child isn’t with you anymore. Moments after realizing that your child is missing, you immediately and hastily scan every direction, hoping to catch a quick glimpse. You begin to shake. You are sweating. Words have no place here because you have lost your ability to speak. You spin around and look again knowing that every second that goes by means they may be further and further away. Has your heart picked up the pace? Mine has.

A fist full of questions begins pounding on the big wooden doors of your mind:

Have they wandered off? Did somebody take them? Who could have done this?How could I let this happen? I can’t believe this is happening to me!

As worthy as these questions are, still the matter of first importance is to find your child. To figure out how it happened is secondary. You can get to that later.

“…the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day.” Luke 2

An entire day passed before Joseph and Mary realized Jesus was no longer with them, before the silence of absence spoke up and got their attention. Immediately, they began to check to see if he was among the friends and relatives, yet Jesus was not with them either.

And for what it’s worth, it seemed as far as they could tell that the plans were fairly simple, clear and straight-forward: they were to go to the Jerusalem for the feast and when it was over, they were to return home, together. Somewhere along the way, what Jesus had in mind and what his parents had in mind were not the same. Coming to an awareness of what had happened, Joseph and Mary left the company of travelers and hurried back to Jerusalem to search for Jesus.

Fortunately, it had only been one day before they discovered Jesus’ absence. And possibly it was not Jesus who was absent. Perhaps Jesus was where he was supposed to be all along. Maybe Mary and Joseph were the ones who did the leaving? Perhaps being focused on their own plans, they wandered off from where Jesus was, not bothering to see if Jesus had come along.

• Am I being led by Jesus? Or am I following myself–my own plan?
• What would it look like if I sought Jesus’ lead in every movement of my life?
• Am I too preoccupied with what I want to do and where I want to go that I become unaware that I am no longer following Jesus?