Less Waiting. More Doing.

 I heard this today.

“ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” John 14:6-8

I heard it from the stage but it’s a story I know by heart.  I know because the very question that Phillip asked was the question that I am asking still.

As he says it from the stage, it makes sense, what Jesus says. That He is the way.  The truth.  The life.  If you really know Him, you will also know His Father.

How could Phillip have missed that?  How could he have been so blind?

How could he have been so dumb to ask?

Wait.  Was it dumb?  Or was he just asking what we all ask?  What I am still asking?

Was he brave enough to say the words that my heart hides?

Jesus tells Phillip that he has seen the Father because he has seen Jesus.  Because he has seen the things that Jesus has done.  

Because Phillip has seen, he should know it to be true.

And really, haven’t I seen it too? 

Haven’t I seen the miracles? 

The goodness.  The feeding.  The healing.   The love.   The saving.

I have seen those things.  Yet just like Phillip I still need more proof.

I used to think that it was God who needed to show up. 

That I had gone as far as I could go and it was up to Him to close the gap.

That I had done my part and now the only thing left to do was to wait.

Wait to feel it.  Wait to feel Him.

But maybe what he said from the stage today is the key. 

Maybe simply inching my toes up to the imaginary line that I’ve drawn and waiting for God to step over first will only ever leave me asking questions.

That in order to feel it I first have to live it.  

That in loving.  In giving.  In feeding.  In sharing.  In serving. 

That in becoming like Jesus I would come to see Jesus.

That if I want to know God in the way that I long for, I have to live in the way that God longs for. 

And so maybe today the answer to the question that I have been asking for the longest time becomes less about waiting quietly to hear it and more about doing something to find it.