The Favourites of the Lord | Dreaming Beneath the Spires
Correggio
Who wouldn’t want a unique vision of angels?
Who wouldn’t want a cutting-edge vision of Jesus and to hear his compelling, electrifying, history-making, immortal words?
Who wouldn’t want to be the first to hear the biggest story of all time? To be entrusted to sharing it with the church and the world? To have the most compelling vision and revelation there ever was? And be eternally famous as a result?
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Ah, who would want to hang out alone in a place where there is no guarantee Jesus will show up, but where you last saw him?
And if he is not there, then there is no reward, nothing achieved from your trek to the secret place, no church status gained, no literary or blogosphere status gained.
It is time wasted; it is self wasted; it is discouraging.
You will perhaps have expended time seeking him whom your heart loves in the secret places—and returned without honey. As all spiritual seekers sometimes ostensibly do.
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To whom did the Risen Christ reveal himself? To those who sought him, even though, evidently, there was nothing to be gained from the quest. To those who sought him for himself.
To Mary, who went to the garden tomb, because that was where she had last seen Jesus, without any thought that she might see him there again. Alive!
To the three Marys who come with spices and perfume to him they loved so much in the place they last saw him with no expectation that they would see or hear the living Christ.
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy and Susan are the first to see the risen Aslan, because they were there on the morning after.
Did he pick out Mary (or Lucy or Susan) because they were his favourites?
No, I believe anyone who loved him enough to take the time to be there would have seen and heard the risen Aslan/Jesus.
Revelation and blessing come to those who hang out, slow down and linger.
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Many seek significance in the church, and the Christian world. Many want to be someone, to be praised, respected, admired. To be important.
And these are instinctive human desires. Each of us is significant in God’s sight. And he designed us to be born into little circles of significance: the apple of our parents’ eyes, our friends’ beloved friend, and to steadily grow circles of significance and influence in which we can be a blessing.
But significance cannot be grabbed; it has to be given to us. It is given to us as we put first things first; as we seek the significant.
And if the tree of our life is to tower high, to bless many, to be significant in the body of Christ, our roots must go correspondingly deep into the secret places of Christ. We must drink of his sweet words, his life-giving waters.
Mary seeks Jesus in the garden tomb with perfume and spices because she loves him. She has no thought of reward. He rewards her with himself. She sees him, he speaks to her; she pounces on him. He gives her a vision, which spread far and wide among the disciples and reverberates twenty centuries later.
So if you feel unknown, unheard, insignificant, put first things first.
Go to him who has never doubted your significance, just hang out with him,
God gives himself, his wisdom, his vision, his revelations to those who hang out with him.
Just as Pharaoh’s magicians could mimic what Moses did, many can speak thundering or eloquent words. What ultimately cannot be mimicked is the validation of God, the blessings God showers on you, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon your life and ministry making it powerful. What cannot be mimicked is love, joy, peace, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
And these things come, in the measure that pleases God, to those who take the time to hang out with him for no reward other than his sweet self.
And to those who thus seek him in a noisy world of competition and hustling (even within the church), he has promised a reward.
When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you openly. (Matthew 6:6).
