Let's Reflect on Jesus
Friday, December 2, 2011 at 12:41PM | in Connection to God, Jesus 
I’m not sure if you know the story of how I came into an intimate relationship with Jesus. It’s a story that begins, in great measure, with a very honest prayer that rose up from my heart in August 1998. I was 19 years old, about to enter my junior year of college, and I had finally gotten around to reading a book that one of my professors had given me in a previous semester.
Reading that book changed my life.
It was not the book’s intention, I don’t think, to bring me face to face with my lack of understanding of grace and of Jesus, but that’s exactly what it did. One afternoon, while sprawled on top of my bed in my apartment, reading the book, that realization became so real that the book fell from my hands and I bowed my head and confessed to God: “I don’t understand my need for grace, and I don’t understand my need for Jesus.”
I had known Jesus my whole life. I don’t have any memory of life without him, in fact. I was always aware of his presence near me, even as a very, very young girl. But the circumstances of my life and some of the natural proclivities of my way of being conspired to take me on a very long journey — the long way around, you might say — to finally understanding my personal need for both.
I’ve been reflecting on that very honest prayer of 13 years ago a lot lately. I’ve been struck by God’s incredible faithfulness to answer it. I think God continues to answer it every day, in fact, because my awareness of my need for grace and for Jesus only continue to grow.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Because my life and mind and heart are full — so full — of Jesus these days, and I want you to know this Jesus, too.
For the next little while, I am going to be using the daily posts in this space to reflect on this Jesus I have come to know. It is my prayer that these reflections will create an opportunity for you to know him, too, if you do not know him yet — or simply to reflect on the Jesus you have come to know, if you already know him, too.
Click here to read all entries in this series.
xoxo,
Christianne
Reader Comments (2)
I am looking forward to reading these!
This brought tears to my eyes Christianne. I am trying to ask myself why. I guess because it triggered some thoughts of God's faithfulness and when we pray certain things and it seems unanswered--God later lets us know that He really was listening. Talking about taking the long way around......whew! I wonder, if yrs ago when I prayed certain things, if God was looking down on me saying, "I am going to answer you, but this is going to take a lot of time and a lot of patience for both of us. There is a lot of debris between us that you can't see that must be swept out first." I look back now and I am certain that is truly what He was trying to tell me, though I could not comprehend that then.