Here’s how it sometimes works for me.
I will read a scripture. There will be thoughts that I’ll have on it and I’ll chew over it. Then I will listen to that same scripture being read – where pertinent listening to the dramatised version which has been a treat. Listening to it will perk up some more food for thought. Then I might run it through with my wife and see what she gets from it and we’ll discuss it and that will spark something off in me.
There will be a few friends that I’ll message about the verse and they will chip in their own perspectives and views. That stimulates the conversation and puts it in perspectives that I would not have considered. Although there might be someone I come across on the weekend gathering if time allows, more often than not it will be in the week when some of us get together that I might be able to put it out for the brothers and sisters to open it up and it really is like a meal. Feasting over the Word of God and the life we live in the light of Him.
It’s not that straightforward all the time. The opportunities don’t always present themselves that way. Various factors can get in the way. Yet from time to time it can work out like that. In it all, however, is not just a conversational exercise to stimulate my intellect. This is truly all about learning what it is to grow in knowing Jesus.
What becomes more and more clear the more the conversations happen is that to truly grow in knowing Jesus calls for a change in me. Change in my perspective, change in my appreciation and sometimes a change in my approach to issues. I can even recount encounters leafing to complete changes in my life’s direction. He has a better idea of how I can get to know Him and see Him revealed in my life. As that happens, so the changes come about.
There’s this episode in the earthly ministry of Jesus. He meets a woman at a well. The woman’s a Samaritan. He shouldn’t be talking to her. She shouldn’t be talking to him. So they talk. Obviously. Cos it’s Jesus and He’s a pretty big deal. She doesn’t know that yet. Her questions and engagement with Him though leads her to grow in knowing. From getting the impression that He thinks He’s greater than Jacob, to perceiving that the guy must be a prophet to then getting the revelation for herself that this guy must be the Messiah.
Each part of the conversation giving her a greater insight into who this man is. As she leaves this encounter she is changed – she’s not the same person who came to the well. She’s a woman on a mission because despite knowing everything about her, here’s a man that sees in her something far greater than a sexual encounter. Here is someone who can redeem and restore her.
The change we experience as we encounter Jesus at first is only an invitation to further changes that we can experience as we encounter Him more. Encounters as we struggle with frustration at a supermarket. Encounters as we grapple with how to get on with our children. Encounters as we perceive how we’re to be light in the workplace. Encounters as we get on with loving each other as sister and brother in His body.
In these experiences there’s an invitation to encounter Him and converse with Him and see how He reveals who He is. As that happens, there is a change. If we’re open to seeing Him as He reveals Himself and not just expect the one dimensional preference we initially had. He’s more than being greater than Jacob. He’s more than a prophet. He’s the Messiah and there’s so much more to Him than that.
He’s inviting us to grow in knowing Him.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 