“Jesus is bone weary from the journey. He is hot and thirsty. He decides: ‘yes, even now, just now, I will seek someone to worship the Father—a Samaritan adulteress. I will show My disciples how My Father seeks worship in the midst of real life from the least likely. She is a Samaritan. She is a woman. She is a harlot. Yes, I will even show them a thing or two about how to make true worshipers out of the white harvest of harlots in Samaria’”
-John Piper, Desiring God
Several times a day, a thought descends on me like a trap sprung from an overhead branch. In a moment’s notice, I’m taken, crashing, to the ground. This thought, in this time, owns me. I mean it’s all over me. [Think of the overweight nerdy guy in Jurassic Park when he crashes his Jeep and that spitting dinosaur sprays him in the face with acid spit and then eats him]. I worship it. I give it my total attention, my total awareness, and I see nothing beyond it. My heart races. Soon an overwhelming sense of guilt overshadows me.
I recently was asked to recount my story and how faith in Jesus became such a central part of my life:
I’ve been searching my whole life. It began as a very young child: An intense longing to matter complicated by the fact that I am the only adopted son of three children. As seems to be the testimony of most with a similar lot in life, an identity crisis existed that was nearly inconsolable by either of my parents. A taste of this here, a touch of that there. That is how it began. I can say with confidence now that God protected me in my search to a large degree.
I was hit square between the eyes by a sermon preached about how to discern God’s will by John Piper today. I absolutely love when that happens. I love a man who cares enough to take a hatchet to my dense skull in effort to affect and infect me with truth. Sounds weird but I love a strong reproof from someone I deeply trust.
