Jesus is a Real Person
Prayer is not to an invisible far away deity. God is actually close at hand (in us) and visible in the evidence of His presence. Like the wind, which is invisible but its effects and presence are visible, so it is with God. The things that happen in life are more that just accidental happenstances or orchestrated results by our efforts. When we take stock of our day, our week, our year, one can see where things happened (or did not happen) that we ascribe to “luck.” But luck is just man’s mechanism to describe something that can only be attributed to being supernatural. Replacing the word and thought of luck with Jesus paints the correct picture of how we are surrounded by the reality of His presence. Like the wind, He is at work but cannot be seen. Like the wind, the effect of His work we experience. Recognizing and accepting His reality starts to make sense of life, our surroundings, what happens, what did not happen. Jesus came amongst his people through physical birth to give us the reality of His physical existence. Prayer gives us the ability to lean into His realness and giving us the privilege to be real with Him. A realness that is practiced in the now by being present. He is present and prayer allows us to be present with Him. That gives us the path to be introspective with and through Him. Leaving out the reality of Jesus causes us to be introspective with our self and leads to a self discovery process without a good sounding board. For self is limited in knowledge. Self tends to pull from the past and pushes for the future without spending time in the now, in the present. What truly is going to happen (in the future) is unknown (except for the guarantee of salvation) yet our inner self is always reaching into the future, the unknown. Prayer allows us to balance this out by being in the present in conversation with the One who does know the future, Jesus. It allows us keep the past the past through the salve of His forgiveness and redemption. It creates a thought environment that is in the present through conversation with Him with our most inner thoughts. The deeper we go in this moment of now, the more we find Him, the more we experience His presence. Jesus made himself physically real so that our prayer life can be based on a reality of Him having walked among man and the reality that He is alive in the present and for eternity. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. He provides lasting hope and life that can only be found vertically (relationship with Him) not horizontally. People can love and respect you, but they can’t give you life. Situations can make your life easier, but they can’t give you life. Locations can bring some changes to your life, but they can’t give you life. Achievements can be temporarily satisfying, but they can’t give you life. Our life journey is a series of “nows” where each of those moments we get to connect to Jesus in our needs, wants, and desires. Not in the future but in the now. The reality of now through the reality of Jesus. Thank you Father for this reality.
