"My God Is Real..."

The German poet Heinrich Heine was once standing in front of the great cathedral in Amiens.  A friend asked him, “Why can’t people build like this anymore?”  He answered, “My dear friend, in those days people had convictions.  We moderns have opinions, and it takes more than an opinion to build a cathedral.”

I yearn to have strong convictions about God.  I yearn to be able to say with conviction the title of an amazing book by David C.K. Watson, My God Is Real.  I have a friend named Richard who was given a conviction about God by reading that book.  He went on to be God’s instrument for literally thousands of young people entering into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Upon occasion, I do have strong convictions.  But sometimes, my convictions falter.  Sometimes, if I’m devalued by the world, my conviction about God’s faithfulness gets a little shaky.  Sometimes, if I pray and nothing happens, my conviction that my God is real starts to feel like just an opinion.  Sometimes, in the face of big disappointments, my conviction that “my redeemer liveth,”  to quote the burial office in the Book of Common Prayer, gets called into question.

In those moments, I turn to the thief who was crucified with Jesus.  He’s the answer.

He’s the answer because I can’t think of anyone else in the Bible who has less value.  If ever anyone was worthless, it’s him.  If ever anyone deserved to die, it’s him.  If ever anyone was a loser, he’s at the top of the list.

That’s why Jesus picked him - because God wanted Jim Munroe, two thousand years later, to know how much God values a human being.

It makes me tremble.  I know I don’t deserve love by my performance and appearance any more than that thief - because I have a backstage view of myself.  I have earned my way into heaven by my performance and appearance about as well as that thief, if the truth be known.

It makes me tremble - because I begin to see that as Jesus loved that thief, so does he love me.  

The only thing that thief had to offer was a prayer.  And in the end, that’s all it took for him to be able to say with conviction, “My God is real.”

This coming Sunday, we’ll look at a character in the Bible named Jairus, another guy who had nothing to offer but a prayer, plus a friend of mine named Jimmy, who also had nothing to offer but a prayer.  Jairus and Jimmy, who ended up saying, “My God is real.”

So bring your faltering convictions with you on Sunday, to be met by such Love that we too will be able to say, “I know that my redeemer liveth.”

I can’t wait! 

- Jim