Often, I am tempted to try to “live inside” the order and understanding that my powerful mind can construct. My mind adheres to the truth and the Person of Christ, but this doesn’t mean that I can reduce the mysteries of faith to a mere ideology that “explains away” the flesh-and-blood challenges of real life, or insulates me from their call (Christ’s call) for my response, my love, and my endurance. I can fall for this temptation (in some measure, as I live day to day) without even being aware of it. But there are times when we realize how little we have allowed our faith in Jesus to penetrate our bones.
As an educated person, a thinker, and a teacher, I do have a few little pieces of “human wisdom” (awkward and fallible), which are also drawn beyond themselves by the small faith I (sometimes desperately) hold onto, and the conviction — often obscured but not entirely extinguished — that God loves us, and that Jesus lives and endures everything with us and in us.
Faith in Jesus is a grace from God. But the world with its darkness and violence, my incoherence and distraction, and the sickness of my mind and body fight against my remembering Jesus and trusting in Him. And now, something is coming that terrifies me!
Jesus, save me...
And now, I cry out in new ways. Not for myself alone do I cry out. “Jesus, save us!”
We all must find this cry, as we move forward into change and pain and the loss of many illusions. Pray to the Lord!
And look for Jesus in the faces of one another. Never forget that we are all brothers and sisters. Don't be alone!
