All of life was important to Jesus because all of life is important to God...Regardless of what you do today—whether that’s writing a paper, planting a garden, preparing a work proposal, or parenting a child—what you’re doing is important to God because it’s part of being human.
-From Ch. 1 ("One Hundred Days") of Jesus Journey
After Day One on the Jesus Journey, I’ll never be bored in the same way again.
That’s a compliment. Seriously.
Jesus was a first-century carpenter; sanding by hand must have become boring at times. And Jesus living his life as a carpenter is part of the gospel. Why?
I’ve always chalked-up Jesus' blue-collar upbringing as an example of divine humiliation. Trent turns this way of thinking on its head.
Imagine that Jesus was a carpenter, not because he needed to find a humble job to fill some sort of suffering quota, but because God considered this ordinary human occupation good preparation for the King of kings, hand-sanding and all.
Chapter One of Jesus Journey helped me see that Jesus’ humanity is not proof that God pities us, but that He takes pleasure in us. Because of Jesus, all of human life has become a divine tool for crafting beings of unimaginable beauty and goodness.
For me, Jesus Journey has been about understanding that God became human not as a last resort, but because He wanted to be. Ephesians 1:5 says it like this: “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”
This means, among many other things, that my “boring, ordinary” human life is not a waiting room or a test. It’s a thrilling gift.
And that’s Good News.
Today's guest blog post is by Luke Pekrul (aka "Léon-Luke" in the book acknowledgements): Luke is a husband, father of three boys, novice house-church facilitator, and community development worker in Nicaragua with SuNica. In all his roles, Luke sees his work as helping people love and know they are loved—by practicing Jesus’ Way together.
(Photo credits: Luke Pekrul)