How Have You Seen Jesus Today?

How have you seen Jesus today?

I think you could ask just about anybody who knows me right now and they would confirm that this is my favorite question. It's my favorite question to ask and my favorite one to answer. I love using it as a conversation starter around the dinner table. I love asking it at the end of the day. I especially love making a habit out of it. The truth is - if you make a habit out of it and start asking youself every day, you will be truly amazed a how much you begin to recognize the presence of Christ in your daily, ordinary life. 

I was taught as a little girl that our God is an invisible God, which I suppose is true in the sense that I can't see Jesus like I can see my friend sitting on a couch across the room from me. But I don't think it's fair to call him an invisible God because he is very, very much visible. 

Look at creation. Look at the love of a mother for her child. Look at answered prayers. Look at servant hearts. Look at how circumstances sometimes just line up. (Are they coincidences or are they miracles?) Look at the Word of God and how it still speaks today. Look at people in another culture and another language worship the same God. Look at the smile of a child who doesn't have clothes, but who has faith in God. Our God is not invisible. 

With the short term team last week, I asked the famous question every evening for our devotional time.

How have you seen Jesus today?

At first, people had to think a little bit, reflecting on their day and finding a moment that fit the question. A few days later, the responses came much more naturally. They were getting the hang of it. But there comes a moment when it clicks, and it's no longer just a question to be asked at the end of the day, but a question you find yourself thinking about throughout the day. You start to experience moments and immediately recognize them as your "Jesus sightings". You expect the question at the end of the day, and so you find yourself constantly looking, constantly seeking, and constantly finding. 

I love it when it transforms from just a question at the end of the day to a daily experience of seeing Jesus in every moment. 

One afternoon, some of the members of the short term team and I took a young man, Erneste, to the hospital to get a dressing change on his leg which was recovering from surgery. After the dressing change, we picked up him and his father with my car and took them home. Without a stretcher or wheelchair to carry him, his father, Sylvan, lovingly and tenderly picked up his teenage son in his arms and carried him gently from the car and into the house. From the car, we just sat and watched. I couldn't take my eyes off them; it was like I was mesmerized yet touched at the foundation of my heart. I didn't realize why until one of the team members spoke up. 

"That's Jesus right there." 

And then I saw it. It was me in those big strong arms. Me, crippled. Me, hurting. Me, healing. And Jesus, carrying me gently. Carrying me sweetly. Carrying me home. 

In that instant, she got it. The question became for her more than just something to reflect on at the end of the day. The question had opened her eyes to see Jesus in a moment that she might have missed if she wasn't paying attention. And that's what it's about: not coming up with an answer at the end of the day, but training our hearts and eyes to see Jesus in the unexpected and sometimes very common places. 

I keep seeing Jesus in Erneste. When the team left, they left him a card, and so I translated it and took it to him just the other day. He sat in a chair on the porch with his bandaged left stretched out before him and a beautiful, glowing smile across his face when I handed him the small gift of a white envelope with a letter inside. His father came and sat on the armrest, leaning lovingly against his son (in a way that you don't see fathers showing affection to their sons very often here in Burkina) and watching his son read the card out loud in French and then translate the written words of encouragement into Dagara for his father. 

He must have read it three or four times before looking up at me and asking, "Is this for me? Like I can really keep it?" 

I nodded and assured him that he indeed could keep it. I think he might keep it forever. 

He kept looking at all the signatures inside and told me to greet each person and thank them. He also kept gazing at the note inside the card and smiling, then flipping to the outside and tracing the sparkly letters of "I am the light of the world" that were written on the outside. I taught him how to pronounce it in English, and he laughed at himself and his African pronunciation, but all I could think about was how true it is. Jesus is the light of the world, and he brings light to our darkness, hope to our hopelessness, and joy to our faces through the encouragement of a simple note during a much needed time. It was just a white envelope, but it held a treasure inside. The light of the world. The presence of Jesus. 

I also saw Jesus this week in a kid named Ankpeina. Well that was his name. We met him in a village because he came to the church asking for a prayer of healing. He had an infection in his arm a year ago, but went to a traditional healer who puctured holes in his arm with an unsterile hot iron to release the infection and only made it ten times worse. Now he has two infected puncture wounds that ooze pus and a diffuse infection and tumification in his entire upper right arm. He was obviously in pain but he didn't cry until we asked him his name. Ankpeina means "he will cause me pain". The pain of his name hurt more than his physical wounds. 

I was so happy to see him when he came to our house a few days later to receive the promised care that we had offered. When preparing to send him to Ouaga, we told him that we would like to call him by a different name. "Can we call you Etienne?" That means Stephen in French, and he graciously nodded his head as a smile spread across his face. That was the first time I saw him smile. Geoffrey explained the heritage of his new name - that Stephen was a man of faith who became the first martyr for Jesus. We believe this young man will be a strong witness of Christ also. 

When I took them to the bus station, I helped them buy their tickets. When the ticket lady asked the father for the name to put on the ticket, he said, "Etienne." From the mouth of a father who has always called his son "one who will cause me pain" came a proclamation of a new start with a new name. Etienne. Stephen. 

At the ticket counter of the bus station, I saw Jesus. The same Jesus who has adopted us as his sons and daughters, taken away the curse, and given us new names.

How have you seen Jesus today? 

The more you ask, the more you will see. The more you seek, the more you will find. May it not just be a question to ask at the end of the day and come up with some answer as an afterthought, but a way in which we live our lives to see something more. To see the visible fingerprints of our visible God. To touch the tangible evidence and feel the real presence of Jesus in even the most simplest and most holiest of moments.