Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Already broken them? Join the club.
Odds are you’re vowing to lose weight, get more exercise, get a handle on your finances, etc. If those haven’t worked in the past, here’s a better resolution, or goal, or prayer to try: “Lord, where will you show me yourself this year?”
Seek the answer daily. And be specific. I had a friend who always used to say, “God is so specific.” And I thought: What does that even mean?
Erich Bridges
I think I figured it out: The God who created this universe — which, according to the James Webb Space Telescope, contains something like 2 trillion galaxies, and each galaxy contains at least 100 billion stars, and that’s just in the observable sky — this glorious, endlessly creative God still sees you, individually, and wants you to see him in the face of Jesus, and in those God has created you to love.
Mother Teresa is one of my spiritual heroes, not just because of her inspiring example but because she was so practical in daily ministry. People were always coming to her and asking, “Mother, how can we care for the poor? How can we feed the masses?”
Her response was always more or less the same. She said, “I never think in terms of crowds but in terms of persons. Were I to think about crowds, I would never begin anything. It is the person that matters. I believe in person-to-person encounters. I think: One. One.”
That’s how she began her ministry to “the poor” after many years of teaching in a convent school in India. She came upon one woman dying on the street in Calcutta and took her to a hospital, refusing to leave until the woman was treated — or at least comforted in her dying.
Isn’t that how Jesus ministered? Yes. He preached to the crowds, healed the sick and raised the dead, but more often than not, he encountered people on an individual basis.
Jesus didn’t just heal “the lepers.” He reached out and touched one leper who asked to be healed, and said, “Yes, I am willing. Be healed.”
He didn’t just free “the demon possessed.” He specifically healed the Gerasene demoniac — a naked, tormented man who repeatedly broke his bonds and wandered among the tombs or in the desert. And when Jesus drove the demons out of him and into a herd of swine, this man, specifically, was clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.
He didn’t just restore “the sick.” He felt the touch of one woman with an issue of blood amid a crowd pressing in upon him, and he stopped and asked, “Who touched me?” It was this woman, specifically, and Jesus healed her.
He didn’t just forgive “sinners.” He forgave the woman caught in adultery, specifically, as she was about to be stoned and told her to go and sin no more.
And he didn’t just raise “the dead.” He wept, specifically, over his friend Lazarus and called him out of the tomb.
I volunteer in my church’s food pantry, clothes closet and shower ministry. I love it, because “the homeless” and “the needy” of my city are no longer general concepts to me. They are Chandra and David and Diane and Jim and Scott and Mickey and Denise and Allen and Michael and Pluto and Cameo. These are specific human beings struggling to survive. They are my friends. I see Jesus in them.
Where, specifically, will you see Jesus this year?
Erich Bridges, a Baptist journalist for more than 40 years, has covered international stories and trends in many countries. He lives in Richmond, Va.