Why Jesus Matters

I grew up in a middle-to-upper-class suburban home in Bible Belt America.  My father was a business owner and my mother a schoolteacher.   I cannot say that I ever missed a meal or knew what it was like to be poor, but nevertheless I grew up white in a somewhat affluent environment. I was an athlete and a straight-A student; I attended church regularly and even went through confirmation class at the Methodist church in my hometown.  I met Jesus for the first real time in April 1994 at a Christian conference, but I didn’t realize the extent of his teachings until I became a man. 

Growing up in this type of environment was not uncommon.  In fact, many of my friends were WASPs and had similar ideas on what the American dream was all about.  My core beliefs were essentially this:  1) work hard at what you do, 2) follow your dreams, 3) want the very best for yourself, 4) become a success 5) liberals are wrong, 6) America is the best country in the world, 7) God has his hand on America, and 8) Jesus loves me.  Little did I know, but I was being indoctrinated into the line of thinking that would dominate my life for a number of years, until just recently. 

I spent several years chasing success.  I graduated from college with a history degree and then went to law school to better myself.  I tried to make as much money as I could, accumulate lots of stuff, and project a certain image to the world.  In short, I was chasing the American dream.  I cannot say definitively if I was a materialist, but I do know now that my focus was in the wrong place for a long, long time. 

Life, for me, was about being successful—making a lot of money, buying a house, having a nice car, having a good job, exerting a certain degree of influence on those around me.  I wasn’t any more obsessed with material things as the next guy, but I can definitely say that success was on my mind.  My world was essentially centered on three things: Finding a Career, Finding Companionship, and Finding Pleasure.    Would you say that this was very far off from most people in America?  Probably not.

Americans want to find a career that is suitable and rewarding to them, both financially and otherwise.  We want to find companionship in our friends, lovers, and acquaintances.  And we want to find pleasure by doing things that are fun, exciting and enjoyable.  This is just part of being an American.  America is all about making something out of your life, finding people to share it with, and having fun.  But these simple concentrations can lead to destructive behaviors in many instances.  My life was no different.  I became obsessed with jobs I had, and paranoid when I wasn’t satisfied with them.    I searched for companionship in perverted ways.  And my search for pleasure led me to dark and hollow places.

But in the midst of all of this, I found the cross.  Somewhere down that twisted, lonely highway of my life, at the crossroads of Confusion Street and Despair Avenue, I found Jesus.  He had been waiting there all along to show me to the right road—to show me a better life. 

It all began with my thinking.  Suddenly I realized, by getting to know Jesus, that my mindset was all wrong.   What I had perceived to be the truth was merely the soft yet distorted extensions of the environment in which I was raised and had come to know and understand.   I had been living in darkness.  The American dream had been my Gospel, and I was trying to fit Jesus into my WASP Republican world.  Thus began a revolution in my mind that was completely counter to everything I had been indoctrinated into since my childhood.  It was not my parent’s fault, nor was it anyone else’s fault.  I was simply a product of a systematic brainwashing by American society that changes the Gospel to fit our suburban worlds. 

Most people settle for a casual relationship with Jesus, if one at all.  Jesus is too dangerous, too risky, too challenging.  For some, to fall in love with Jesus is to be a “freak,” to serve him fully is strange or odd.  We love normalcy and comfort, and we dare not buy into something that will take us out of our biosphere of ease or our calm little worlds.  

Most people don’t want Jesus to be a part of our everyday lives.  We only make ourselves available to him on Sunday morning, and the rest of the week we go on living our lives like he didn’t matter.  But Jesus is not an itinerant God that is gone during the week and suddenly arrives back on Sunday morning.  He is a God that has made himself available to us at any moment—in any circumstance.  We don’t have to worry about whether or not Jesus is listening (because he undoubtedly is) nor whether he is speaking, because he is consistently transmitting messages to us in the form of subtleties that eventually play out into the masterpieces that he intends for our lives.  By not making Jesus a part of our everyday living, we are selling ourselves—our lives—tremendously short.  We are missing out on the fulfillment and abundance of the blessings of Christ, the peace and happiness of our Redeemer.