reflections

I passed under the sign no one driving wants to read: Highway 13 North (the one I wanted to go on): Accident. All lanes closed.
Really? So I sat there with everyone else waiting to go home and I turned off the "Top 96 songs of 2009" - I had enough of lady Gaga anyways - and sat there thinking and praying.

Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me." I'll admit: it's a pretty egotistical statement. But never, not once, did I stop to think why Jesus said that. Why would He, Jesus 'meek and mild', sweet baby Jesus, say something so controversial? I realized a long time ago that Jesus was a revolutionary - he went against the grain. I think He wanted to prove a point. In talking to my friend Liz over the past few days, she showed me something that never clicked before: Jesus said that because He's the only one that came to get us. Allah never came. Buddha never came. No one else never came down to earth to put themselves in form of man to sympathize with our weaknesses, as the Bible says. Jesus in the book of John says "I came down from heaven" - He came down, and that made Him the Way, the Truth and the Life. The only way to get to the Father is through Him, because He's the one that created us and loved us enough to come down and 'get us' to bring us to the Father.
I think this week I realized why I love true Christianity - it's not a game to win points, claw out the opponents and burn candles to hopefully, maybe get ourselves to heaven. It's not a competition to see who can honor God the most. I love it because it's for me - the imperfect sinner who loves God and has a small fear of fire (so candles and I aren't always friends).

It's a simple faith, when it's all said and done. There are no promises in the Bible that say everything will be ponies and rainbows, but I know that He came down for me and that He will be with me.