To My Friends

I have spent most of my life involved in getting to know Jesus Christ.  I have been a fairly miserable companion in the relationship, I must confess.  It’s pretty one sided. I talk to Him most at night, but throughout the day I think about what He would say in conversations with people I know.  When I talk to my friends I think about how Jesus would talk to them.  Would He be nicer than I am?  Would He have better manners?  Would he get nervous like I do?  Then usually I feel like I could have been a better conversation partner with my friends.  So I go back home and tell Jesus that I want to be more like Him.  That’s when He challenges me to go to the Bible to learn more about Him. 

The Bible is where I have learned to be confident in who Jesus is and who I am.  I have learned that there is more to Jesus than I learn in church, and more to Jesus than I learn in being a counselor.  My journey as a therapist has taken me to places in the human mind that I did not ever set out to find.  I got there by accepting God’s invitation to serve others, and I was not surprised when my need for certain knowledge was far greater than I had been exposed to.  I met a few people along the way who seemed convinced that they were giving me answers that would lead to the rearrangement of my theology.  I was not surprised that my understanding of theology was only more greatly enhanced and broadened.  It was never mistaken or obsolete.  But the knowledge that I gained through a steady diet of Biblical exposure as a child was the only thing able to sustain me when I was confronted with a seemingly theological contradiction between psychology and truth. 

The simple truth that is foundational for understanding all human conditions is relayed through the Bible.  It does require us to become comfortable with the idea that God has a way of doing things that makes sense to Him…and He doesn’t need our help in figuring out problems that we think are new.  Sometimes God’s way does not make sense to us, and we become offended. Then we re-arrange our knowledge in a way that makes us feel better about ourselves and call it truth. Silly us though, we don’t realize that we are missing the perspective that God has.  We can find His perspective in the Bible, and when we feed ourselves a steady diet of His word, no human issue can arise that will outgrow God’s ability to meet our hunger.  It may not be the immediate answer we want, but it will lead us deeper into a relationship with Him.  He’s the one who made us hunger for relationships in the first place, and no amount of seeking Him will make Him any less satisfying if we are truly in a relationship with Him.  The one thing that can go wrong is when we try to convince Him that we are better at being God than He is. Ironic isn’t it…He calls himself I Am.  He’s pretty confident in His abilities.  So I want to take some time talking to my friends about what I have learned about God on the road to being a counselor.  I have studied Biblical prophecy, I have been asked countless times why I believe what I believe.  I have sinned.  I have repented of my sins.  I have been a (arguably mean) boss and later, a servant.  I have changed many times.  It’s got to be getting pretty predictable to Jesus by this point.  But along the way, Jesus has never changed.  Now I want to serve you, because He told me to.