Dad,husband,california pastor,friend,confessed and forgiven sinner. Art,lead pastor at New Life Christian Fellowship in the SF East Bay burrow inoccuously called Pleasant Hill in the not so inoccuously named Diablo Valley. My wife is a teacher to the visually impaired my daughters are at San Francisco State University and the Pleasant Hill High School
Does my followship of Jesus invite, require, evoke life giving? What does that mean? Can I really serve without ulterior motive, help only to become more like Jesus who loved and gave because he cared? Sometimes the vision of who you are Jesus just gets lost, like the bright sun on a hazy or cloudy day. I know you are there. I can feel your warmth still. My attention wanders and the rest of me benignly follows. Before long my navigational skills are worthless, I have lost my bearings. Like adrift on the open sea subject to unforseen weather, circumstance drives my heading. Its your committed love, hesed is the Hebrew, steadfast faithfulness that alone can refocus me, that can lead me and keep me enlivened on your path.
If I were able to look from above, to observe from a vantage point on high, my foot steps on the path that shows my followship of Jesus they would probably look more like skipping than walking. Rather than a unbroken series of feet on the ground pace by pace trail that faithfully trails Jesus’ own footsteps, you would find omissions, places where the footsteps disappear, veer of the path in new and irregular directions, oh there is another one back on the path.
Isn’t that beautiful?