Bits for Sunday, November 8

This weekend I went to a writer’s conference down in Indy. I told one of my friends that Jesus and I became extra close as I encountered the surprise installation of a roundabout on my path to the conference location. Okay, so they didn’t wake up and install it that morning just to make me crazy. It has been a year since I drove that way. But still.

After praying my way through that roundabout (and defying various known rules of the road in my maneuvering) I enjoyed the chance to learn helpful practices and techniques. One of my favorites was the session in which I learned how to be even more OCD about my editing. In fact, when he teaches that workshop again, I think he should change the title to “OCD Your Way to the Perfect Manuscript.”

One session I attended was about writing devotionals. When I started writing…way back in the day…I was a fiction writer. During college and shortly after, I wrote mostly devotionals. Then I moved on to Bible studies, which is where I still spend most of my time.

But recently my love of the devotional has been rekindled. Part of it is a challenge. I’m wordy. I don’t have to tell you that. Bless your hearts, you sit and just read and read and read every week. Motor Mouth grew up to be the Saga Story-Teller. Writing devotionals forces me to condense – something I usually reserve for milk.

While the speaker in the devotional session encouraged us to write on unfamiliar passages, I’m going to share with you one I wrote just recently on a very familiar passage…but when I studied it a few days ago, I saw it differently than I ever had before.

Matthew 28:16-20 says, Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Some doubted. Jesus’ own disciples – men who had lived with Him and observed His teachings and miracles on a daily basis for three years – doubted. Their lives had taken drastic turns in those three years. The lives they had so easily and naturally lived until Jesus’ arrival were transformed into lives that beckoned them fiercely away from what they knew…and yet sometimes made no sense and offered little normalcy.

And just as it began to develop its own routine, it all changed. Jesus was arrested, He was crucified…and then He was alive again and requesting them to meet Him on a mountain side. Maybe the disciples should have known better, but they doubted.

I’m glad they did. I’m glad Matthew vulnerably shared their uncertainty because it reshapes the way I read the Great Commission. Jesus wasn’t barking orders or even ceremoniously “tapping” his successors. He looked out over the faces He had lovingly taught in His ministry and He saw their doubt. He saw their fears. And he understood.

His response was to affirm them. He still saw in them the men He knew they could become. And the time had arrived for them to choose whether or not they would move forward with what He asked of them. He reminded them of His authority, issued by God the Father. And He gently urged them to go. He urged them to teach others to obey, which would require that they first must live the obedience themselves. And He reminded them of His constant presence.

I didn’t walk the dust of the earth with Jesus, but I have seen Him work. I have heard His voice…His commands. I have communed with Him. And yet sometimes I doubt. I feel ugly before Him when I do…I chastise myself because I should know better. But Jesus sees who I can become if I choose to move forward.