Have you ever had a spiritual “thunking?” A moment when God whacks you on the head with something so simple but profound you wonder how you missed it for so long? It happened to me this week.
I sat down to read Souvenirs of Solitude by Brennan Manning and bam! In the first chapter, God pounded me with this thought: “Have you grappled with the core question of your faith, which is not ‘Is Jesus God-like?’ but ‘Is God Jesus-like?’”
On some level I’ve always known this, but this week God is calling me to truly understand it. Does your God remain aloof on the throne of heaven doling out blessings or curses as He sees fit? Or do you follow a God who willingly accepts poverty and persecution so He can display his love for you? Think about Jesus’ life and correlate it to how you perceive God. I can barely wrap my head around the fact that God…the creator of all things…knelt down in front of some lowly fishermen and washed their feet. A job reserved for the lowest of slaves and God chose to do that why? To show us his love.
As Easter approaches I am struck anew with the anguish not only Jesus suffered, but God as well. God poured the essence of who He was into Christ and watched us reject Him, mock Him, beat Him and kill Him. We rejected not only God’s son, but God himself. That He would willingly forgive any of us after we so cruelly refused to accept Him…it is incomprehensible. Manning writes God saying, “You have no idea of how much I love you. The moment you think you understand is the moment you do not understand.” I pray I never think I understand God’s love for me but that He will open my eyes each day to the ways in which He does.