I think about what it means to be Jesus-y a lot. I talk about it a fair bit too, with all kinds of people. At work, at parties, at playgrounds... I like hearing what other people think it must mean, and I like hearing what I think it must mean as I puzzle it out with them. I also like wondering about who God is, and what God is up to. They're not the same to me, God and Jesus. Jesus is the bodied expression of who God is, and the person who's Life and Death and Life Again makes knowing God possible and worthwhile. I probably believe that somehow what we call the Spirit is the animated back and forth between me and that Creator God and that Alive Again Jesus. That all three are all sewn up together into a trinity of something Other and Divine.
I was talking about who God might be with my friend Laura this week. She wondered about praying for what is impossible when it is sometimes nicer to just pray for what is possible instead. There's less disappointment in hoping for what's possible generally speaking. But as she wondered on about daring to ask the Creator of All for what cannot be if we're in charge, for what can only be if God's in charge, she remembered words from Brene Brown. They were words for us to use when we've heard another's heart - "I don't know what to say, but I'm so glad you told me." And suddenly Laura and I were quite caught up in the image of a God who sits across the table over coffee and says, I'm so glad you told me.
Whether we have poured out the darkest, bleakest, sinniest thoughts about those whom we thought we'd love, or gone on and on with our list of demands for our friends and beloveds and our own broken selves, or maybe waxed eloquent in overwhelmed gratitude for unexpected goodness, God nods slowly and says, I'm so glad you told me.
That's really the only answer to prayer that I can imagine is worth hearing.
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