Recently, I became engrossed in a story I was reading by William Bausch in his book, Storytelling, Imagination and Faith. In short, the story tells of a man sitting alone in his country kitchen concerned about problems he was having at work, at home, trying to balance the finances and other family matters which were weighing heavily on his mind.
Something made him look up and he realised Jesus was standing in the doorway. He assumed it was Jesus. The man was wearing a long white robe, had a beard and a golden halo around his head, just like the pictures you see of Jesus.
The man questioned the reason for such a visit and Jesus invited him to come for a walk with him. After getting over the initial shock, the man thought it mightn’t be such a bad idea to use this opportunity to get Jesus to give him some answers to his pressing concerns.
As they walked down the road the man started blurting out the problems, he was having at work. Rather than giving an answer, Jesus seemed to ignore the man’s concern and instead, pointed out how beautiful the landscape looked after yesterday’s rain.
The man tried on a number of occasions to get some answers to his problems, but each time Jesus evaded his questions by pointing out some other interesting facet, such as a butterfly or the fruit on a tree. The man gave up when Jesus challenged him to a stone throwing attempt at hitting a lamp post.
When they returned to his home, the man was upset that he hadn’t resolved any of his problems. As he looked up at Jesus, he detected a smile on the Lord’s face as Jesus turned towards him and said, “Stop trying so hard”.
This so reminded me of the words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel,’ Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest’.
I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.