Perspectives…

What are you known as? Are you ‘the ‘…’ guy’ or ’the ‘…’ girl’?
Here is a list of some people you may have heard of. I won’t tell you what they have in common, I’ll let you guess. Please make your guess in the comments. Oh, and don’t google, that makes you ‘the ‘cheating’ guy’.

Berry Gordy (the Motown guy)
Bob Newhart (the ‘Stop it’ guy)
Buzz Aldrin (the Space guy)
Imelda Marcos (the ‘3000 pairs of shoes’ lady)
Jackie Kennedy (the ‘first’ lady)
Yasser Arafat (the scarf guy)
Grace Kelly (the Monaco girl)
Martin Luther King (the ‘I have a dream’ guy)
Jerry Goldsmith (the ‘Star Trek-Tune’ guy)
Jacques Brel (the ‘ne me quitte pas’ guy)
Audrey Hepburn (the ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’ girl)
Anne Frank (the diary girl)
June Carter (the Cash girl)
Matt Murphy (the ‘Matt ”Guitar” Murphy’ guy)

About a decade ago, I would consider myself to be the ‘Hagrid’ guy. There was finally a beloved movie character that I could identify with. The gentle giant. And that way I could easily focus on my long hair, my big beard or my height. The fat-factor would almost drown between these other eye-catchers. And of course that wasn’t true, but it made it easy to ignore. People would still comment on my weight, but it somehow made it easier for me.

One day, after I had just started a new job, I was in the elevator with a colleague I hadn’t spoken with yet and he asked me: ‘Do you know that you look like Jesus Christ?’ My reply was: ‘Inside or outside?’ He walked away puzzled. The next day, we were having lunch together and when I tore off a piece of my baguette to dip in my soup, he said: ‘Corpus Christi’. That was funny, but it made me think about looking like Jesus. I don’t think I was a very good representative of Jesus back then.

A while later, when I was called out by Jesus about my alcoholism, there was a long list of amends to be made and attitudes to adjust. Some of the big ones were the drinking, the smoking and the lifestyle. One other big one I remember quite clearly was my hair. I believe Jesus asked me to show my obedience to Him by cutting my hair. Part of why I let it grow was rebellion, but it also had become my disguise, my safety-mask. The Sunday after the barber-visit, I noticed some people smiled at me in church. Not because long hair was a bad thing, but having it cut was visual evidence of my internal change.

Through the years, I’ve learned that living with Jesus is a graceful blessing, but we also need to keep a constant view on Him to continue living like Him, so we can look like Him. And at times, we don’t have that view on Him, we are easily distracted, quickly tempted away or misdirected in another way. Luckily for us, His hand is always stretched out to us. The good Shepherd looks after His sheep, He chases after us when we wander and He picks us up when we’re in a ditch.

I want to be known as the ‘Jesus-guy’, and the only way to get there or stay there is when my view stays on Him. I need help with that. And so do we all. I’m thankful for His kind Spirit to guide us, I’m thankful for His written Word, available to me, and I’m thankful for His idea of church around me.

I want to be more attentive to His Spirit and His guiding.
I want to dive in the Bible more and more.
I want to be more available and vulnerable to my brothers and sisters around me.

And on the moments I don’t want that…

I need to have habits in place to help me want it.

-Take that moment to listen, maybe scheduled, different times a day.
-Read the Bible, maybe scheduled, every day.
-Meet with other believers, maybe scheduled, a few times a week.