"Jesus, thank you for coming anyway"

Every so often I'm struck by a turn of a phrase that probably didn't seem very profound to most people, but happened to really cut straight to my heart.

The first sentence of this Sunday's closing prayer did it for me:

"Jesus, thank you for coming anyway."

If the Bible is true -- or if even "the majority of the words of a rabbi named Yeshua who lived about 2000 years ago" were true -- then 1) we live out our lives in the midst of a remarkable spiritual plane that goes almost totally unnoticed, and 2) it's amazing that God would choose to interject himself into that ignorant and ungrateful world.

And that's not an indictment by "me" against "them;" I'm as ignorant of and ungrateful for God's workings as the next guy is. I don't live in a state of unceasing prayer. My life isn't focused on "advancing the Kingdom." I hope (and am fairly confident) that I'm not actively undermining God and His work by my actions, but an honest self-assessment does make me wonder what the right definition of "Lordship" is... and how I measure up to it.

And then whenever I get too concerned about whether I measure up to God -- news flash: I don't -- I remember the perspective captured so succinctly in that prayer. "Jesus, thank you for coming anyway."

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