Living in Northwest Arkansas, as I am now, I see a lot of churches. I hear a lot of people talking about God is some way, see them reading their Bibles in coffee shops, or driving along the road with some religious proclamation stuck to the back of their car. And whether it’s mentioned casually in conversation, or the topic is deliberately brought up because someone really cares about it, it’s clear that Christianity has had a far-reaching impact on this nation, and in some areas a more powerful one than in others. Yet on the whole, when I look at the United States, at the things it has collectively agreed to permitting, or passed off as unimportant, or the things that it seems to place the most value in, my heart breaks for what has become of so many. And it comes down to the thing it has always come down to, for every person: have you met Jesus?
Growing up in the United States, pretty much everyone has been shown or been spoken to about some form of the Christian God at some point; everyone knows something of God. But that doesn’t mean that everyone knows God.
I had this thought just the other day. Growing up in this nation (or really anywhere in the civilised world) is something like living your life in a great manor house, owned by a benevolent lord. You can’t live there without hearing about him, or seeing the things that he’s touched. Through observing the house and what it looks like, how it’s laid out, what sorts of things find their home between its walls, you can even come to know something of the lord of the manor. And this will have some impact on you, just as living in any place will. But unless you seek out the lord of the manor, you never really meet him, and thus don’t ever come to know him as a person; you don’t experience the reality of his life, of who he is. You may be struck by the beauty of his home; yet without knowing him, you will not see that beauty as a result of who he is. You may find great solace in the safety and comfort you feel beneath the roof; yet without knowing the lord of the manor, you will not see that protection as something of his making, but merely happenstance. In short, you may live in the lord’s house, and see the lord’s work, and even know that the lord is there somewhere about you, without ever really coming to know him — without ever meeting the lord of the manor. I believe it is the same way with God.
I am very fortunate to have been brought to know God personally. Certainly it has not come about as a result of my own cunning or some righteousness in myself, for there is none in me outside of God. I didn’t earn the Lord’s favour through church attendance, through knowing the right answers to Bible trivia and not saying dirty words. Truly I lived in the Lord’s house for years without ever knowing Him. I didn’t really meet Jesus for myself till my late teenage years. And not until then did I see the difference there was between believing in God, and knowing God. Then my eyes were opened. And everything looked different.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Meeting Jesus not only changes how you see things, but how you respond to the things you see. And the friends I’ve made since coming here two months ago — the family I have become a part of — have proven that like nothing else I’ve experienced thus far in my life. To be welcomed in, not only to a church, but to people’s homes, in some cases for weeks at a time, to be given food, and shelter, and day-to-day necessities, to be provided for on an emotional and a spiritual level as much as on a material one, as I never have before — and by people who’ve just met me — is astounding. All the more so because of all the things that might have resulted in my never ending up in this town. There are no coincidences with God. Getting out here was a challenge, and the result of many things I could never control. I never could have guessed that I’d find what I have, certainly not that I would find it here.
I drove into Fayetteville, Arkansas on the third of October. It’s now the twentieth of December, and I have a job that I love, I have an apartment that I can afford, and I’m surrounded by people who love me — and who show through their actions on a regular basis that their love is genuine.
After you meet Jesus, just like with anyone, getting to know Him is a process. But getting to know Jesus, unlike with anyone else, means coming to understand that there is a person who loves you in a way that no one else ever could; it means seeing the source of the love that those around you bear for you, the source of all the beauty and meaning in the world and in your life. I have no words to describe what this really means, nothing to say that could capture the beauty of this truth. I only hope that whoever reads this, if they haven’t already, would seek to meet Jesus for themselves; not merely to believe in Him, but to know Him.
love,
— Joel