By Rhonda Stinson
Ava is my playful niece who hasn’t yet grasped the concept of size. “Aunt Rhonda, get on the swing and I’ll push you,” said my 7-year-old niece. She doesn’t see me as a full-grown adult, but as her peer. I’m her playmate even when I dread playing most of the games she has in mind. Most playground equipment is made for the height and weight of the “little” people. I constantly remind her that I am much bigger than she realizes. There’s no way I could’ve fit it that swing! She thinks of me as being her equal which is fine until certain situations arise.
As I’ve been studying the book of Mark, many people got to witness Christ’s miracles. His 12 disciples walked with Him for about three-and a-half years. They were each called out by Christ to be learners and ministers. They saw His humanness and His holiness. Jesus Christ cast out demons, healed the sick and lame, calmed the storm, walked on the sea, and fed 5000 with 5 loaves of bread and two fish. These are just a few examples. “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25 NIV).
It amazes me to see how much these people knew about Jesus yet still couldn’t grasp His greatness. It seems as if the people saw Jesus as their peer which blinded them from seeing His greatness. Even when Jesus led Peter, James and John to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray with Him prior to the crucifixion, we get a glimpse of their blindness. (Take time to read this account in Mark 14:32-52.) Jesus asked them to pray while He separated Himself unto prayer to the Heavenly Father. Jesus returned to find them sleeping, three times! Jesus was preparing to go to the cross, yet they were sleeping. How in the world did this happen?
I don’t know about you, but when I’m anticipating an event that involves me, I am wide-eyed no matter how tired. I twirl the to-do’s around in my mind, think about how the events will play out, and even think of what I might say. On the other hand, if the disciples were so tired, why didn’t Jesus seem to care? We must take into account what we know about Jesus. He is all-knowing (omniscient), and He wouldn’t ask us to do something that He wouldn’t enable us to do. These disciples were sleeping physically and spiritually. They still hadn’t grasped the fact that Jesus, the Savior, the Son of God would be arrested that evening and soon after, crucified.
It’s easy to be critical of those who just don’t get it. I, too, find myself stumbling just like the twelve. Have you experienced God’s greatness, yet still doubt? It’s easy to see Him deliver you from a disease and then doubt Him when it comes to healing your marriage. This should be a lesson for us all to pray for a deeper understanding of God that we may be able to grasp the hem of His greatness! Oh, that we would have eyes to see and hearts to know the grace, wonder, awe, love, mercy, compassion, etc… of the Great I AM!!!
I know that Ava will not only realize that I am her friend, but that I am her adult aunt who will continue to teach her, discipline her, guide her, comfort her, and love her with all of my heart!
“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Eph. 3:20-21).
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