Anyone who knows me, probably knows that I’ve been obsessed with Pride and Prejudice since forever…
As a child, I was so impressed by the pretty ladies and the clever things they said that I watched the movies over and over again, re-read and even memorised the book. In short, I became a dedicated and adoring fan.
When I progressed into the terrifying realm of early teenagedom (or teenagedoom, depending on what it was like for you), I started to mould my character from what had been modelled to me from the pages of Pride and Prejudice. I assumed that to be intelligent, I had to be sassy. To be passionate, I had to get upset easily and alsospeakveryquicklyalways. This led to me rarely thinking before I said anything, which meant I said some pretty mean (and often dumb) things.
Needless to say, it didn’t go down very well.
As I grew up a bit more, I became a lot more interested in this guy named Jesus. I was around 16 when I first heard the term “Christ-like”. The Christian who explained it to me seemed shocked that I had never heard it. To be honest, I was pretty shocked as well.
All of these years I had been looking for the perfect role model to emulate when I had the best role model ever staring me right in the face… and I was putting Lizzie Bennett above Him? What?!
I realised that trying to be Lizzie Bennett was easy. I just had to come up with strongly worded sentences veryquicklywithoutstoppingforbreath. I aimed to hurt and I did. They deserved it, right?
(Wrong).
Being Christ-like was not so easy.
Sometimes, I would get to be Christ-like to the people that I loved and who loved me, but most of the time I would have to be Christ-like to the people I found it difficult to love and who certainly weren’t treating me with love.
I’ve been trying to work on this, especially in the last few months, and I realised something pretty cool.
Everyday, Jesus sends me something to remind me how much He loves me. It could come in any number of things: sunsets, one of the Squishies smiling at me or giggling, something from scripture that speaks to me… and everyday, He also sends something to challenge me.
How I respond to the challenge is how I show Him that I love Him too.
How can you show Jesus that you love Him today?
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