As Shawn was preaching yesterday, I was struck by the accessibility of Jesus. The invitation is to ‘come and see’. Far from being a God who is distant and inaccessible, Jesus is close enough for us to ‘come and see’ Him and He desires that we do just that.
As the weeks drag on and so much is inaccessible right now, Jesus remains just as accessible as ever.
And nothing can cut off that access! The reality that ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ’ (Romans 8:39) continues to hold true and is completely unthreatened by the current situation.
However, the realization of the amazing accessibility of the offer to ‘come and see’, was quickly followed by the convicting question – so why don’t I ‘come and see’ more often?
Why don’t we ‘come and see’ all the time? Why do we hesitate? What holds us back? Why do we want to see before we come (as Shawn put it)?
Perhaps it is our natural distrust of things that seem too good to be true or maybe it is simply our distrust of God. That is, after all, what drove Adam & Eve to disobey God in the first place – an inability (or unwillingness!) to silence the voice of doubt that said that perhaps God was holding out on them.
And we too wonder whether God’s way is the best way. In all areas of our lives (school, work, future plans, relationships or simply how we spend our ‘extra’ free time now), many of our poor choices and mistakes stem from a distrust that God has our best in mind.
How different would these areas of our lives look like if we fully committed to ‘come and see’? Maybe we would ‘come and see’ that true life is accessible to us, right here, right now!
But what about when we do all this and we still don’t seem to experience to life? What happens when we have to shelter in place and put our lives on hold for weeks or even months? It seems to confirm our doubts and fear that God can’t really be trusted! It seems we are right to hold back and hedge our bets.
I think at times like these we have to ask ourselves the question – what if it’s our own expectations that are wrong? What if the problem is that we want life on our own terms, according to our own standard of good (and evil)?
Jesus said “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:24)
And then Jesus lived it out.
When Jesus went to the cross, He lost His life to save the whole world. Indeed the invitation to ‘come and see’ is only available to us because Jesus fully trusted His father, even when the road ahead didn’t look like anyone’s definition of life.
This is not easy and it will look different than the expectations we are taught to have for what life should be.
If you’re willing, I invite you to ask God to help you to fully put your weight on Him and trust that His way is best. And then to ask Him to show you where Life (what is good by God’s standards) can be found right now, despite these less-than-ideal circumstances.
Let’s not just try to ‘survive’ this time, let’s ‘come and see’ how we can thrive in the fullness of God’s life right now.