I once went for a walk with someone new to the church. As we strolled through the park, she looked at me and said “So, you are really into Jesus, aren’t you?”  What followed was a wonderful discussion about faith, scripture, but most of all, the importance of Jesus.  She described being initially attracted to Jesus’ life and teaching. She explored the gospels and read some books about Jesus by famous authors; She listened intently to the gospel read each Sunday. But Jesus seemed aloof to her. He seemed locked in ancient texts, completely removed from her life.  What she really wanted to know was how to get to know him.

Since my ordination twenty plus years ago, I have seen many who struggle to have a life-giving connection with Jesus. Faith becomes reduced to what one believes about Jesus, rather than an on-going relationship with him. For many people (yes, even in the church) all talk of talking with Jesus, living with Jesus, or following Jesus, suggests a naïve piety divorced from real life. Yet in the hidden spaces of life, and in the private corners of the sanctuary, these same people have often whispered deeply penetrating questions such as ‘how do I find Jesus?’, ‘how do I know where Jesus calls me?” and “how can I feel Jesus more?”

The good news is knowing Jesus isn’t some highly exultant experience reserved for mystics or ministers. An everyday, participatory, life with Jesus is available to all. Jesus says so. He declares that his home will be within all who open themselves to him. People can know his voice and feel his presence. What is more, Jesus invites us to himself precisely for this reason. His frequent call to “come to me” or “follow me” is an invitation to meet him in the context of daily life. These words are not simply locked in ancient texts; they are spoken into us today.

But understanding the reality of this invitation doesn’t help us answer the question of ‘how” we can accept it. For that we need a daring shift in the very understanding of our spiritual selves.  We need to see our prayers as responses to be in Jesus’ presence. We do not pray because we must; we pray because we wish to speak to the God we love and are in relationship with. We don’t read the bible as mere ancient words useful for religious or spiritual information; we come wanting to listen to God’s voice speak into our lives in transforming ways. We go to the community of faith because we the Spirit in us draws us to connect with the Spirit in others and together worship the Living God.

Daring to believe that Jesus can be met in prayer, in scripture, and in community, disarms the anxiety that can so easily surround trying to ‘find him’, and the condemnation we heap upon ourselves when we fear we haven’t.  Instead of hunting for a Lord who seems always out of reach, we free ourselves to respond to the one who comes to us. We move from finding Jesus to being found by him.

This change of perspective isn’t instantaneous, as much as we might like it to be. That’s part of the problem. We often want results in the moment. We want to pray and have an answer forthwith; we want to read the gospel and find direct spiritual insight; we wish to find Jesus the moment we turn our attention to him. But that’s not how our spiritual lives work. After all, we are invited into a life-long journey with Jesus; and that journey isn’t fast. In his book Three Mile and Hour God, Kosuke Koyama writes: “Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It is ‘slow’ yet it is lord over all other speeds since it is the speed of love…..It is the speed we walk and therefore it is the speed the love of God walks.”

The invitation is made and is continuously being made. Our response, therefore, is to be made today, and every day. Each day brings another opportunity to enter the slow process of letting Jesus form our mind, heart, and soul. Only then can we say that we have “found Jesus”; and point to the places where we continually find him.