Reflection: We’ve probably all heard of young children having a ‘security blanket’ that they take everywhere for comfort. For my daughter, it was a pair of pink swimming togs that she had grown out of. Once on a long car trip, we stopped at a diner to eat. It wasn’t until the next morning, after we’d arrived home, that we realised she had left the pink togs back at the diner. She was devastated!
For the staff at the diner, the pink togs might have looked like a discarded cleaning rag, but to my daughter, they meant the world. I knew instantly what I had to do – and so followed a two-hour round trip to rescue the pink togs! When something matters that much to someone you love, it matters to you too, to the point where it becomes your highest priority.
When Peter sees the risen Jesus on the shore, he alone jumps into the water, fully clothed, and swims to get to him first. But Jesus challenges his demonstrative dive, saying, “if you truly love me more than these others, tend my sheep – feed my lambs.” For Christians, the measure of our love for Jesus is not the praises we sing to him on a Sunday, but how much we’re prepared to make his greatest obsession our highest priority.
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for the way you were passionately seeking me, even before I knew that I was lost. Touch and transform me with the same obsession for lost people in my community, that I might be effective in leading them to you.
We are reading the Bible with NAYBA Australia. Matt Boulton is the National Coordinator for ACC Community Engagement and the founder of Circuit Breaker, a NAYBA Recognised Project that helps churches to prevent domestic violence in the community.