Reading John 6 recently, I only made it 6 verses in. A crowd had gathered around Jesus…
When Jesus looked out and saw that a large crowd had arrived, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread to feed these people?” He said this to stretch Philip’s faith. He already knew what he was going to do.
He already knew.
Then why’d he ask? To stretch Philip and the faith he held.
I love the image of Jesus that this verse depicts in my mind. Jesus is the Playful Pusher–I’ll bet he smiled as he asked that question, fully aware of how it would make Philip’s wheels spin. I suspect he took pleasure in the knowledge that his disciple’s mental processor was not going to handle what he was loading into it.
And that brings me a sense of pleasure.
Because I need a Master who demands more of me than what I’m currently capable of, and I need a Lord who knows my limitations enough that he can lovingly meet me on the borders of who I should be, but am not yet.
Once again, I’m reminded that he is truly good to me.
Special thanks to Steve Kerr, one of Yahoo!’s NBA writers, for this little nugget.
And to Kobe for being a tad dense when it comes to things like speaking…
Quote of the Week
“He doesn’t seem to have much of a conscience. I haven’t gotten used to that mentality of just chucking it up there.” – Kobe Bryant after Gilbert Arenas exploded for 60 points in a win at Staples over the Lakers. As Alanis Morissette would say, “Isn’t it ironic?”
I was listening to the radio a few weeks back as I drove home from hockey.
The guy speaking was a physiotherapist, who works with some of the top athletes in North America. Among his clients were several NFL stars, a past world record holder for the bench press (700+ pounds at that time), and Donovan Bailey. Beyond being the therapist who worked with these athletes’ muscles, enabling them to push themselves to the limits, the speaker also served as something of an analyst.
He spoke at length of his work with Donovan Bailey. They’d video Bailey running, and then they’d spend hours breaking it down frame by frame. In the quest to absolutely maximize his performance, they’d look at every little piece of his stride: How’s the movement in his ankles? Knees? Hips? How’s the flow of his arm movements? Angle of his back? On and on and on…
Anything that wasn’t contributing to forward motion had to be changed. If it was stealing any bit of thrust from the sprinting, it had to go. That’s some intense scrutiny in the name of reaching full potential.
And I like it.
It got me to wondering what it would be like to “watch film” with Jesus himself. What if we sat down to analyze my “stride”?
What would he say about the way I process the world around me?
What would he notice about the way I interact with others?
What comment might he make regarding the impulses that pass through my mind and heart in a given day?
What might he point out in the ways I respond to both positive and negative sensations?
What insights into the way I operate would he draw my attention to for the first time, all in the quest to better me?
As another year ends, I give thanks for the growth I’ve experienced and for the fact that I’m a better man now than I was 12 months ago. That said, I can definitely see how much I’d learn in a film session with the Master.