"Asking the tough questions" is a phrase you hear alot now days. Overuse can rob us from the ability to really ask the tough questions. I know some people who prefer not to deal with that kind of thing and then I know people, like me, who seem to thrive on it. Someplace in between those two extremes is probably the healthiest spot!
However last night during our Wednesday evening worship experience, we were celebrating the Lord's supper by taking bread and grape juice and sitting together at tables talking, laughing, sharing and partaking. It was real and felt so "in the moment." It was an experiential way of remembering Jesus. A little later we were discussing and journalling about two questions that had been assigned and one of them resonated with me more than usual. It is still bouncing off the walls of my heart and mind. The question was something like this, "imagine what your life would be like if Jesus had not died and risen." I know you have heard that 100 times. Like me, you probably even have a pat answer. But for some reason last night I was stretched to journal some thoughts about who I would be without Jesus. My actions, my thoughts, my behaviors, my responses.....It was not a pretty site.
I felt further convicted that there are days when the ugliness of my heart still seem so overwhelming and that is with all the shaping that God has done and continues to do in me.
Can you even imagine yourself untouched by the Potter?
Laying aside the pat answers, have you really thought about what the "Christless" version of yourself looks like. How that version would act and speak and live? Think about it for a while and then give thanks. Worship Him in praise and shout out, How Great is Our God!
4 comments:
Nice (and tough!) question(s), Arlene.
Of course, I don't think that we can really identify who or what we'd be without the revelation of the Living Word. For me, it's mostly a problem of trying to figure out what the WORLD I was born into would have been like. It's a question that stands at the intersection of the Incarnation and "It's a Wonderful Life."
I notice you get more comments when you ask easier questions. Don't want to know what that says about your audience (or at least one of your audience).
Frank it is true that the question itself can not be answered in a vacuum.
Scott, well yes....:-). Given that you are one of the deepest thinkers that I know that is kinda' funny coming from you.
I’m deep on the easy questions, plus I’m good at stealing other people’s ideas. I get exposed on the tough ones. I’m like the hitter who crushes minor league pitching and gets to the major leagues and can’t get the bat on a good curve ball.
I’m with Frank (I think). The world I would have grown up in would have been so different, it’s hard to imagine what I would have become. That’s a lengthy discussion and I don’t have the time and energy to put my thoughts on paper, but I would not have been a pretty picture without His shaping presence in my life, and in the lives of my parents and grandparents.
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