IT'S ALL IN THE TURN

Aug 16

Where are you turning? In each moment, each decision, each encounter? Where are you turning?

Turning towards or turning away.
They’re the two options.

There are a million tugs, pulls and diversions drawing away your glance from the one focus that matters. Casting your eyes downward, outward, inward, away.

Shame pulls our sight downward.
Guilt pulls our glance inward.
Pride pulls our view outward.
Fear drags us away.

If you would only see His face in those moments.
All the while His face is a well, deep and fresh, offering water to quench the questions.

Turning towards or away is a decision of paramount significance.

It’s all in the turn.

There’s something about that face, and being caught up in it, that transforms every type of person.

THE STOIC TURN

I’ve seen the hardest of hearts bend and break in its sight.

I have seen even the irreligious confess the reality of Jesus Christ.

I have seen the toughest of hearts turn under the presence of this loving God.

I have seen outsiders to the faith confound the seemingly righteous.

Like the hardened centurion charged with the responsibility of carrying out the Messiah’s crucifixion, they cannot deny His goodness and might. (Luke 23: 47, Mark 15: 39, Matt 27: 54)

THE GUARDED TURN

I’ve seen the fearful come out of the shadows once they finally see His face.

Shrouded in wealth, profile and status, once afraid of people’s opinions, suddenly unashamed.

Like Joseph and Niccodemus, silence is no longer an option. Hiding is no longer their preference (John 19: 38-42).

I have seen tentative followers catapult into the public eye at the crushing reality of the Jesus they have finally and truly beheld with their own eyes.

I have seen anonymous followers become perpetuators of honour in chambers of influence.

I have seen rich and powerful, bow before the blood stained Jesus.

I have seen secret followers turn.

THE SHAME-FILLED TURN

There’s something about shame that averts our eyes from truth.

Shame pulls us into a false humility that teeters precariously on the edge of pride.

“I’m too dirty to be helped”, shame convinces us; “I’m out of reach”.

Like Mary Magdalene, most tormented and reject of them all, who was the first to see His resurrected self, first to hear a commissioning, most unlikely according to the world, yet first trusted by Him (John 20: 1-18).

I have seen the most ‘un-worthy’ find worth.
I have seen the most broken find wholeness.
The most tormented find peace.
I have seen the rejected find their belonging in His sight.

In the moment they turn, and look in His face.

THE SKEPTICS TURN

I have seen opinion turn to faith.

I have watched critique, cynicism, and prerequisite flee in the presence of Jesus.

I have seen familiarity and contempt melt away in the tears of tradition-bound church kids when they finally see Him for themselves.

Like Thomas, I have seen critical striving church leaders and volunteers break when they realise the works that they proudly cradle in their own hands pale in comparison to the grace cradled in the pierced hands of their Saviour (John 20: 19-29).

I’ve seen many types of people turn.