Becoming Like Jesus

I really do wish I could blog multiple times a day, much like I text, and much like a famous female author from long ago. She (I believe Bess Streeter Aldrich, but I get mixed up and think maybe it's really Gene Stratton Porter) is reported to have been a busy mom. It is further said that she carried a pad of paper and pencil in her apron pocket so she could jot things down as she thought about them. Her literary endeavors must teem with such scratchings. It would be nice to blog like that. Just snippets as I think of them. It might be a funny thing a child said or did. Or it might be some profound thought I had. Most of them slip away, completely unremembered.

In recent weeks, many people we know have given birth. In the last forty-eight hours, I know of two deaths, both occurring on July 4th. Babies slip into the world to drug addicts and to mothers of sterling character. People, young and old, slip out of the world mostly unnoticed but by a few. On one hand, there's nothing remarkable about either event. On the other, both occasions are Most Significant.

The human masses sometimes seem no more significant than a herd of cattle. Then suddenly an individual face from the mass is before you. Their look of fear or elation, of boredom or intensity find a way into your consciousness. Ah, now there's a conundrum. Once the whole of humanity presents itself in just one person, we find ourselves needing to decide how that one fits into our dimension and pondering what obligations might exist. It is one thing to see an aerial view of a congested interstate and quite another to see one face of terror in one car as it spins into a grave peril.

The incarnate Jesus can heal a woman he'd not seen or heard. He simply "feels" her presence as He healed her by default to His deity. It is His nature to help humble and ailing men in trouble. In Him is no need for decision making. His nature is righteous, His orientation focused singularly on the Father. As a result, in any circumstance, He will act with perfect poise and with precise and perfectly timed execution.

We must put upon Him our weakness and beg for Him to transform us into His likeness. We must not let the one who crosses our path go away untouched by His goodness working in us. It surely must become second nature to perceive a need and possess the wisdom to act with the same precision and concern we see in The Master.

My thoughts and funny stories slip away often, but what of the people I know or see? Do they go the way of my small daily thoughts and observations? Are my senses trained to perceive the hurting or struggling person within my circle of existence? I need to know that behind the tiny newborn eyes lies a soul. I need to be moved to practical compassion for the grieved, for the lost, and for any troubled one at all whom God would allow to pop up from the masses in front of me.

Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said , "Who touched My garments?" Mark 5:30