I Know I’m Not, but I know I Am
Happy New Year! I had such a good time last night with some of my friends, and a ton of other people I didn’t know. We mainly hung out at a house till like 2 a.m., which was a little too late for this boy. As much as I love talking with different people, I don’t really like being in large crowds. I think it is because I love some good in-depth conversations, and to some degree I don’t think that I can have those when I am around a ton of people.
Like many times my friends and I get together with each other or with random people, we, or maybe I should say I, end up talking about church, Jesus, or something along those lines. The fact of the matter is, I love to hear people’s stories, and typically the stories I end up hearing have either a good or bad story relating to Christianity and the church. Last night I got into an awesome discussion with a guy that was from Los Angeles, Ca and we ended up talking about the differences between the Christians in L.A. verses Nashville.
In all seriousness, it was one of the most awesome discussions I have had in a while. Maybe it was because I love talking about Christian stuff, etc, but I totally left that conversation excited about the upcoming year and trying to become more focused in my pursuit with God. I guess I had an epiphany of sorts during the conversation that slapped me pretty hard and woke me up to the fact that God has, and is, working in my life. It’s almost like being able to talk about my relationship with God out loud often helps me understand better God’s interaction with my life because I am not just thinking about it, but hearing it.
Can you imagine not being able to talk out loud about what God is doing in your life? I can’t, and what is interesting to me, is that when Jesus healed the leper man in Mark 1:42, in the very next verse Jesus tells him to not go and tell anybody. Can you believe that!? To me, to not talk about Jesus, would mean to have shallow conversation. Now, I know that shallow conversation is fun and ok to some extent, but no one can ever truly get to know someone based off casual conversation.
One of the things I have always wanted in my life is to be known. I want people to know me; my good and bad, my ins and outs. There is something very freeing, in being known. It’s like when one is truly known then they no longer have to pretend to be anything or anybody other than who they really are. They would be accepted or rejected but solely off of whom they were as a complete person.
What gets me, in this story, is that in my limited understanding it is almost like Jesus is saying to this healed man, “I don’t want people to know your story.” If anything it is like Jesus wants to be a mystery of sorts, and at first glance that bothers me. Having read through tons of scholarly material, there are several reasons why Jesus possibly wanted this healed man to keep his mouth shut. (1) If the priests knew that Jesus healed him, then they could have become prejudiced and not rendered him clean. (2) Jesus didn’t want to be known as a magician. (3) This man’s story could have made Jesus’ persecution happen a lot sooner.
This kind of puts things in perspective for me. Yeah, I may get angry and not understand why things happen in my life, but thank goodness God can see the big picture. If I would have been Jesus, I would have been like, “Go tell everybody what I have done for you.” Yet again, Jesus knew what the deal was, and decided that it wasn’t even about Him at that moment it was about the Kingdom of God.
Even now I am getting so pumped about it all. Jesus took a step back, examined the situation, and realized that in that particular moment it wasn’t about Him! I’m reminded of Loui Giglio’s book title, I Know I’m Not, But I know I Am (God). As we start the new year, (TODAY!) I hope I can take a step back in the upcoming year to realize that life isn’t all about me but about the Kingdom of God. I’m sure I am going to need some help with that, so I hope you all will keep me accountable.
Again, Happy New Year! I can’t wait to see what all God does in our life in the upcoming year. Keep me posted!