Eyesight

I am in the middle of an email conversation with a young woman who asked me a thought provoking question..."If Jesus is so real, where can I find him? and I mean every day?"

Where DO you find Jesus? Where do YOU find Him?

I am finding that He is most apt to reveal Himself in the midst of life at its most real and inescapable.

Not necessarily in the blaze of unearthly light, or in the midst of a powerful sermon, or in the midst of an incredible altar call or retreat, but...at supper time, walking along a road, in song on the radio that captures my heart and opens my ears, in the sparkling blue eyes of my daughter, the mischievous smile of my son, or the soft voice of my wife humming.

This is the element that all the stories about Jesus after His resurrection have in common. The normalness of His appearing.

• Mary waiting at the empty tomb and suddenly turning around to see somebody standing there - somebody she thought at first was the Gardner. How average is that?
• All the disciples, except Thomas, hiding out in a locked house, and then His coming and standing in the middle of them.
• And then later, when Thomas was there, His coming again and standing there, in the middle of them.
• Peter in his boat back after a night at sea and there on the shore, near little fire of coals, a familiar figure asking, "Do you have any fish?"
• The two men on the road to Emmaus who knew Him only when He disappeared and they recognized His affect on their hearts.

How often do we miss Him simply because He isn't 'appearing' as we think He should. Think back over your day. Was He calling to you in the form of a gardener(or a cashier, or fellow student, or delivery man, or police officer)? But the realities of your own life blurred His presence?

wiping my eyes,

j