A different kind of Jesus

The song of the day: You Know Me- Steffany Frizzell from the Bethel Loft Sessions.

I dream about Jesus often. I always think about what He's like in person, what he smells like, how he behaves, what his voice sounds like, and most of all how amazing and everlasting his embrace is. Oh how I have dreamt and envisioned the embrace of Jesus, my friend and my love. From Him embracing me in visions on the floor of youth retreats, where I thought of myself as worthless and unforgiven, to Him embracing me in dreams, reminding me of His everlasting and unfailing love. He will always embrace us. The one who died on the cross so that He and his heavenly father could spend eternity with us embraces our hearts. That is a hug I anticipate the moment I reach heaven.

A long time ago, my dear friend Seth told me that he didn't really favor images and pictures of Jesus, because to him it seemed that once we saw a picture of Jesus, that would be the image of him that is printed in our brains forever. The picture of a man in a white robe with long brown hair and facial hair. I didn't understand how pictures of Jesus could be relevant to our relationship with Him, and it wasn't until this week that I found out the Why. In a dream that I had this week, I dreamt that Jesus was coming. I knew he was coming, and my family and I were waiting in our house for Him. But instead of sheer excitement and backflips, I felt fear and anxiety at the thought of his near return. "This is the end?" I thought. "Are we even finished yet? Is there not more to do on this earth?" I wondered  all of this as if this temporary world was more important than what was beyond the horizon. I kept peering out of the window, looking for a jewish man in a white robe, but there was nothing. Suddenly there was a flash, and I closed my eyes and expected to be zapped to heaven or something crazy. But instead I heard a knock at the door. I went to open it, and a man was standing there. But he wasn't dressed in white. He didn't have a halo or even long brown hair. He didn't even look like someone far beyond our world. He had shaggy hair and a scruffy beard,with jeans and a t-shirt. His face lit up when I opened the door and he smiled. "Hey!" he said, and opened his arms to embrace me. A kind of hug that was reuniting. The kind of embrace that says "Now we'll be together, and nothing can separate us. Not even time."

The hug didn't seem to have lasted long enough before the dream ended.

I really love Jesus. Sometimes he has to remind me that he isn't a far-off distant kind of God, but he is close to us. He isn't coming with the image of being beyond our human comprehension, but he comes with the intention of being with us. Of sitting by us at the lunch table or going on a walk with us at the park. He knows every fragment of us. He laughs and jokes and smiles. He embraces us and he misses us and wants to live with us for eternity and love us. He's just like us because we were created to be like Him.

So God, let me be able to see you as a dear friend. Help me to understand you even though your ways are higher than mine. Let it be a fun relationship, not a distant one. Let it be full of love and simplicity.