Christianity Is A Person

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." - G.K. Chesterton

I beg to tweak the great G.K.! Christianity is not an ideal, and if we view it as such it is no wonder that we find it both wanting and "difficult" (in the wrong way). Christianity is a Person. It is the love of Christ that is so often left untried. It is Jesus Christ who seems so "difficult" because we do not trust Him.

Indeed, the thought that the “Christian ideal” is too difficult is not entirely unreasonable. How could we ever put it into practice by our own power? We are lost in the wilds. We do not know, by our own power, how to even begin to “try”.

It is not the lost sheep who finds the Shepherd. It is the Shepherd who finds the sheep. It is not the lost sheep who finds his way back to the fold. It is the Shepherd who carries him on His shoulders. The sheep needs to trust the Shepherd and let himself be carried.

He carries us, but He does not coddle us. He does not seduce us into trusting in Him. He draws us to Him by showing us the beauty for which our hearts were made, the real beauty; and when we see Him we will know that we are not being tricked. We will know that whether we say yes or no is a matter of our freedom.