WHY JESUS: THE TRUTH

THE PRAYER           

• Find a quiet space.            


• Breathe deeply and recognise God with you in this moment.            


• When you are ready, speak to God about this time together.            


• After you've finished praying, go through the following passage a few times slowly and thoughtfully (preferably out loud).        


• Allow God to meet you in these words.
  
  

Lord, I’m single-minded in pursuit of you; don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted. I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt. Be blessed, God; train me in your ways of wise living. I’ll transfer to my lips all the counsel that comes from your mouth. Amen. Psalm 119:10-13 (MSG)

THE FIRST READING

Read this passage slowly (preferably out loud) as you allow God to meet you in these words. Pay attention to anything God might be highlighting as you do.

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (NLT)

RESPONSE

Take some time to respond (write down, draw, pray, etc.) to God’s prompting in the first reading of the passage. What is he highlighting and saying to you through this?

THE SECOND READING

Read the passage again (slowly and preferably out loud) through the “lens” of what The Spirit highlighted in the first reading. Listen for anything else the Spirit might be saying.

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (NLT)

THE REFLECTION

Gravity is real. I learned this the hard way as a young boy. I climbed to the top of my father's concrete barbecue armed with nothing more than a tea towel around my neck and a deep conviction in my gut that I could fly. 

You see, the night before this moment, much like Martin Luther King Junior, I had a dream. In this dream, I floated through the air with effortless swipes of my hands as if swimming through water. When I woke up the next morning, the line between fantasy and reality had all but disappeared. 

I jumped out of bed and ran outside. Filled with the assurance that only the imagination of a child could bring, I climbed the concrete barbecue, tiny hand over tiny hand until I was standing on the top of it. Over a meter off the ground, tea towel blowing in the wind, I stood there for a moment, certain that I was the next Superman. And then, I jumped. Not with caution or restraint, but with the kind of abandon that certainty brings. You can imagine what happened next. After a split second of freedom, a first swipe of the hand quickly turned into a frantic flailing of the arms. My illusions were shattered. The line between fantasy and reality came screeching back into focus and no tea towel could save me from the inevitable fall. 

SLAM! The ground, like gravity, was real.

Truth, like the ground, like gravity, is real. 

It’s what we slam into when we realise we are wrong. We might not like it, we might try to deny it, but sooner or later, if we ignore it, we will find ourselves falling through the air of our own imagination and slamming into the bedrock of what is. 

Jesus comes to wake us up from our misguided fantasies and calls us to his pre-ordained reality. He offers us truth. The “inside scoop” on how he’s made his world and how he intends for us to flourish in it. Like a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, His Truth, spoken in His words and embodied in His life, leads us into the fullness of what it means to be human.

We can reject it. He’s given us that freedom. We can insist on being the superman of our own story, deciding what we will do with our lives. But truth doesn’t change. No matter how much we believe in our own imagination, we are still the little boy wearing a tea towel, seconds away from a rude awakening.

The irony of it all is that our dreams aren’t far off from the truth. Our longing to fly is God-breathed. Humanity was created for an incredible purpose, but not on our own terms, not in our own strength. Jesus offers us his truth because he longs to lead us into his purpose. 

While we may perceive it as the limitation we so fear, truth is actually the liberation we most desire. If only we would trust him.