Something to think about…
Raising children is an adventure. Each day presents something new. It can be funny or frustrating, but it is never boring. One of my favorite family “moments” happened one Sunday evening a few years ago.
As we were preparing dinner, our two oldest boys were occupying themselves with a game. They were about nine and six years old at the time. It happened to be a memory match game based on Bible characters. We could overhear their conversation from the other room. At one point our oldest son, Ephraim, said, “Oh, I found Jesus. I think whoever finds Jesus should just win the game. He is the most important one.” His little brother agreed with that sentiment. I had a moment of parental pride thinking that they are beginning to understand the significance of Jesus in our lives. Then a few moments later, I hear this conversation: Ezra: “Yeah, I found Jesus again!”
Ephraim: “Hey, I wanted to find Jesus this time. Give me Jesus.”
Ezra: “No, I found him first. He’s mine!”
A scuffle ensued. My wife went to check on them. Then I hear her yell, “Hey! No one should get punched over Jesus!”
It made me laugh. Though, later as I reflected on that experience, it made me think about what too often happens in the church. We want to possess and control Jesus. We want him to be ours and ours alone, instead of allowing Him to possess us and acknowledging that we are fully His. Soon we begin to squabble about who really has Jesus, who knows Him best, and who is closest to Him. We are experts at missing the point and are not all that different from His first followers who were found arguing on more than one occasion about who was the most important among them.
How many people have been punched over Jesus? How many times do we hurt one another? Maybe it is inevitable that brothers and sisters will squabble from time to time? But, it is my hope that grace and forgiveness would flow in our relationships. And, that our unity in the family of God and our identity as His children would override our need for control. Jesus prayed something similar in John 17:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”~ John 17:20-23 NIV
May we would stop punching each other over Jesus and recognize that we don’t possess or control Him, but He possesses us. And may we truly live into Jesus prayer for unity among His followers that the world may know “God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son!”