The last few years of reading the Bible and writing my thoughts has produced a treasure of new insights for me. I suspect it has to do with the intentionality of my morning devotion time. Today is another case in point. The punch line or result of the healing of the woman from Nain’s son is that people were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people" (16). Recognition began to dawn on the people that Jesus was special. He was a prophet. And prophets are people send by God and speak and act for God.
Reading this, I realized that the people had made a significant step toward fuller understanding of who Jesus was.
Believing in Jesus often involves a process as our minds and thoughts are challenged and changed from disbelief to belief, depending upon a person’s starting point. Do they believe in a god at all? Do they have any kind of religious background, any monotheistic religious background, etc.? The journey to belief may be long, dotted with many intellectual, experiential or theological hurdles.
Jesus gave people time. He allowed people’s thinking to grow and evolve. He was satisfied, in the account above, that the people had made the step to believing He was from God. Oh, they didn’t have full understanding yet about His divinity or His atoning death but they had made a significant step toward true understanding.
I began to think, do I give people time to believe? Do I let them make small or large steps in understanding and allow God, the Holy Spirit, to work in their lives, changing and transforming their thinking? Or do I give up on people because they don’t ‘get it’ quickly or completely right away? I need to think about this some more and more deeply. There is a kernel of truth here that should impact my witness to Jesus….
Come, Holy Spirit, bring Your wisdom. Teach me the way of Jesus. Teach me to better share my faith in Jesus… Teach me, O Holy Spirit, that I might lead people to faith in Jesus and in the Father who sent Him. Amen.
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