I recently started a new journey in my walk with God. I decided to get a Give Me Jesus journal from Life Lived Beautifully. (You can check it out the one I got here. There is also a men's/unisex version here.) The journal is designed to bring structure to your "quiet time" with God. I'm a very organized person, but when I spend time alone with God, I feel scattered. As much as I want to give God my focus, it is a struggle. So when I saw this journal, I was on board. The first few pages has introspective questions to fill out to and gives you some guidance for how to go about having a daily time with God. I've been a Christian since I was little and even went to Bible college, so I thought that filling out these questions would be a piece of cake. But they made me really evaluate where I am - where I truly am in my relationship with God. There was one page in particular that really struck me...
Based on a a saying by Robert McCheyne ("For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ!), this particular page gave a challenge:
"We must redirect our gaze to Jesus throughout the day. Take time to write down your 'ten looks' you will take at Jesus."
When I read these words, I felt my breath stop for a moment. Write down the ten looks I will take at Jesus? I know the things He said, things He did, and how the Bible says to live. But do I know Jesus well enough that I can articulate ten things about Him that I can look at? Off the top of my head, I drew a blank. I was overwhelmed and at a loss. So I sat for a while in the realization that after so many years of living for God, I knew much about what He had done for me, but I did not know as much about HIM as I had thought. I began to flip through my Bible and look at passages that I had highlighted, searching for glimpses of Jesus...
1. "...Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm...even the winds and the sea obey him..." (Matthew 8:26-27)
2. "...But take heart; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
3. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)
4. "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
5. "He is the image of the invisible God..." (Colossians 1:15)
6. "And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians1:17)
7. "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." (Colossians 3:1)
8. "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power." (Hebrews 1:3)
9. "the founder and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2)
10. Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!...You alone are holy..." (Revelation 15:3-4)
I keep this journal on my nightstand open to this page (with my phone far away, charging in the living room). So in the morning when my alarm clock goes off, before I have had time to dwell on the pain and stiffness that lupus brought my body through the night, before I start counting the items on my to-do list, and before social media has flooded my mind with so many useless and dramatic things, I grab this journal and take ten looks at Christ.
