Over a year ago I was on a retreat called "Courage To Lead" where I was invited to wander on rolling, wooded, retreat center property until I found my favorite place. When I found it, I was instructed simply to "be there," to be present and see what I could learn from the place. I was immediately pulled, as if by some gravitational force, to the shoreline of a lake. I've always felt most at home near water. I sat, looked, listened, and felt. Over the course of the year I returned to that place at each of the successive seasonal retreats.
The water fascinated me. It changed colors as the angle of the sun moved and the shades of the leaves surrounding the shore brightened . It retreated and advanced, telling me how rain had fallen since last time. It rippled or smoothed revealing the migrations of fish and the power of wind. For all of the water's daily, seasonal changes, it suffered no identity crisis or change of purpose; it remained itself, a source of life for everything around it and something mysterious and enjoyable to look at.
I must confess that much of my life attempting to follow Jesus has been spent trying hard to be what I am not now. I am broken yet I want to be whole in Jesus. I've tried to drown my sinful inclinations in a deluge of Bible study, prayer, worship, and good works. I've often flexed my muscles of self-control until they felt like popping. I've tried chasing down the ideal of being like Jesus as though I could accomplish that on my own power. I have often felt the scraping of my chin and the dry dust of the trail in my nose as I have failed.
Now I've come to find that growing to be like Jesus is less about my effort (though aligning my will with God's is vital) and more about simply being what Jesus' life, death, and resurrection have already made me. Colossians 3 reads,"Since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." My sin-craving self is already dead, drowned in baptism and in the blood of Jesus. My new, God-like self is now alive in Christ. No longer is the task of following Jesus about trying on my own effort to become what I am not. Now, I am called to be what I already am in Jesus Christ, my new self, restored in the image and beauty of God. Here is a call to all who follow Jesus, "Be who you already are in Jesus Christ."
