Reaching for Jesus
November 12, 2003
I am reaching for the highest goal
That I might receive the prize
As I was singing these words last Sunday at Affinity, I asked myself, “Do I really reach for the highest goal? Am I striving for a prize? Should I even be doing that? Can I even do that?” Or should we simply be reaching for Jesus. So, this is where the stream of consciousness began, from “In the Secret” lyrics, to reaching, to rock climbing, to handholds, to reaching for Jesus.
If you put a group of people at the bottom of a rock climbing route, no matter how awesome the crack is, each person will take a slightly different route. Yet, they are all seeking after the same thing, to reach the top of the climb. And I began to wonder how this might pertain to the Christian journey. You have a group of people who are on this ‘journey’ but each of them is going to do it differently. So often, we think “Hey — THIS handhold, or THIS foothold worked for me, so it’s definitely going to work for you - reach there, up, to your right, come on!” And in reality, it may or may not work for that person — and they may find a handhold or foothold that works so much better for them. But what happens, is that I may be so offended, distraught or worried about them because they didn’t do it “my way,” that I forget to stop and realize that they are reaching for the same goal - they are seeking the same Jesus - they’re just doing it a different way. [Thoughts...?]
Tags: Modern-Worship, Praise-Music, Theology
Posted in Theology
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
November 12th, 2003 at 4:36 pm
paul has a couple of things to say abou this…
“for we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether jews or greeks, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” 1 cor. 12.13
“not that i have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but i press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, i do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. but one thing i do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, i press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” philippians 3.12-14
gregg
November 14th, 2003 at 1:06 am
I like the analogy. I’m all about finding analogies for things that we talk about but often seem to say only the same things, again and again. As to rock climbing, I’m no expert (no, not even a novice) but I know the point of it: to reach the top. But that’s not really why climbers climb. The thrill isn’t in finally standing on the top—though that must be thrilling—no, the thrill is in finding the best way up the cliff, mountain, boulder, frozen waterfall, whatever it may be. There are an infinite number of places to grasp, and we each only have two hands and two feet. We can’t be everywhere at once. It takes concentration; it takes physical and mental effort; it takes cooperation (OK, so some people do climb alone, but it doesn’t really help my analogy, so we’ll stick with teamwork here); it takes stamina. A lot of Christians forget about these things. I forget them. My muscles will ache; I will tremble from the exertion; maybe I’ll want to give up and let someone hold my rope for a while, take my weight. Maybe that’s OK sometimes. But then I’ll do the same for them when they are weary. (It appears that this analogy could continue indefinitely… perhaps this is a good point to end, and make a point.) The top is not the only reason; the top is not the thrill. I can’t be where you are and you can’t be where I am… we can hold on near each other, and help each other along, but we’ll always be climbing by our own route. (Adam—I guess this is to say that I agree and enjoy the excuse to produce a little English-major verbosity tangent.)
November 14th, 2003 at 11:56 am
I totally see what you’re saying. I’ve seen it so many times where people try and force feed Jesus onto others because maybe that’s how they found God…or that was the easiest “route” for them…but that’s just not how it works sometimes. I think we fail to acknowledge the fact that we are all just as individual in our journeys as we are in our personalities. And there’s a reason for that. If we were all to pursue God in the same way…then when we got there, what kind of stories would we be able to tell? How would we be able to relate to other people and share the gospel with them if all of our testimonies and journeys were the same. We’d be so boring. I’ve been working with some really awesome guys at our ministry here in CO, and the funny thing is that a lot of how we got here and who we are is found in our journey in seeking Christ, BUT that is also what brings us together as a family. And if we didn’t have that, it just wouldn’t be the same.