Day 1 – The Place We Begin
Come to me…. (Matthew 11:28a, NIV)
What do you picture when you think about the word “come”?
What do you see behind your eyes when you imagine Jesus saying these words?
Do you see His hand reaching out for you?
What does His face look like?
Once He stretches out His arm toward you, what does He do?
When I try to imagine what Jesus looks and sounds like, I place myself in the crowd listening to Him. When I catch a glimpse of His eyes, I see gentleness. I see kindness. I do not feel pushed or stretched, or obligated. I feel welcomed, and that warms me.
In the original Greek for the word “come,” there is an urgency. It is meant to grab your attention, like God has your face between Their palms, looking you directly in the eyes. Jesus is calling us gently and invitingly. Jesus’ intention in this passage is to intervene, whether that is in the actual circumstances or through my emotional responses to circumstances. His aim seems to be to arrest the current process, system, and pattern and get us to look toward a new vision. It is the vision of God at the center so that we and everything around us can be transformed.
{You know what I mean by intervention, right? Yeah, I mean THAT: when family and friends sit down with someone deep in the throes of addiction to force the person’s hand to get help.}
Reading this word “come” on its own is that serious an invitation. It is gentle but is STRONG, a bucket of ice water over the top of your head. We are meant to sputter and reel in shock. It is meant to stop us in our tracks, which some of us (ME) need because we are so used to keeping it moving.
We are being invited into a revolution of human thinking, behaving, and existing. It is meant to be a total and complete shock, even if we don’t know what we are really getting ourselves into. The disciples had some experience with that. It’s not necessarily safe, but it is good.
I love what C.S. Lewis writes about Aslan, the lion character meant to connect us to Jesus in his Chronicles of Narnia book. Several of the characters are discussing Aslan, and the conversation goes like this,
Lucy asks, “Is He safe?”
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Mr. Tumnus says, “He’s wild, you know. Not a tame lion.”
Jesus is no marshmallow kind of God. Yet the image of the all-powerful, conquering King doesn’t do Him justice either.
In my time of hurt, I don’t need a white knight to ride in and save me. That’s the easy way out, and sure, it feels needed sometimes, but if I’m honest with myself and how I was created, I am not a damsel in distress. I am a competent person with complicated emotions I must learn to navigate. I need a soft, safe place to land that also pushes me to realize I need to do something about this hurt now. I don’t need to continue to let it fester.
I need the shock to the system that this hurt isn’t my whole story. I need the intervention so I will be able to see there is a different path. Otherwise, pain is all I know, and I’ll get used to living with it, with the result of a half-life God never intended for me to live.
Even if doing something about it means I put it into Jesus’ hands with shaking, scared hands. I can look into His face and focus on what I see there. Accepting the invitation to stop, redirect, and go a different way is a brave step. Even just admitting I have hurt in the first place. It is only a place to start.
And I can trust this good, wild Savior to care for me as I heal.
Prayer: Dear God, help me to hear You say, “Come,” and give me the courage to respond. Help me do the next brave thing, even if it is as simple as showing you my hurt. I pray for the willingness to be healed, letting this intervention show me there is a possibility of something beyond what I know. Amen.
Healing Step: Take five minutes to sit with the visual of Jesus’s invitation to come. Is it any different than you first imagined now that you know there is more to that invitation? Spend this time letting your imagination take you somewhere as you picture the scene. Refer to Matthew 11, specifically starting at verse 25, for more context.
