Awake SydneySample

What do you want?

Psalm 116:2 says that our God is a God who bends to listen (NLT). What an incredible image it is, that the creator of the universe, our heavenly Father, is not far off, is not distant but in His incredible Love hears us and tends to us.

One of the great encouragements for me from scripture this year has been Jesus’ first appearance within the gospel of John. From relative obscurity, He steps onto the scene as the ‘God Man’, the second member of the Trinity, one who was there at the beginning. And aside from His cousin John the Baptist identifying Him as ‘The Lamb of God’ (1:35), He is a nobody! Yet some of His first followers, John and Andrew, get a whiff of this Jesus character and curiously begin to follow Him wanting to discover who He is and what He is about. 

And what does Jesus do? Run away? Tell them to get their act together? Instruct them to meet criteria A, B or C?

No, He turns towards them! His gaze physically shifts towards these seekers. The creator of the universe meets them where they are at and greets them with a game-changing question. Now keep in mind that these are Jesus’ first recorded words as per John’s Gospel. Not ‘thou’ or ‘shall’ or religious speak, but these simple words in verse 38: ‘What do you want?’ Jesus the Son of God, the Saviour of the world awakens their desires and invites these normal men to come alive! He meets them exactly where they are, knowing that more than anything these men need to meet with Him! And because of this question, these men spend hours with Jesus discovering who He is and who they are in Him. Even to the point where in verse 41 Andrew finds his brother to exclaim, ‘We have found the Messiah!’

How incredible it is to ponder that we too have found the Messiah! Not because of our own human striving or effort but because God meets us where we are. He physically turns to us and awakens us with His desires! And in prayer God bends to listen and we respond in faith. What a great God we follow!

Charlie Burke

Young Adults Coordinator - Churches of Christ in NSW

www.freshhope.org.au/fresh-hope-youth