I’ll get to the central point of this post in a bit but, first, I need to do some housekeeping. Bear with me if you have the patience.

I have written a lot about Jesus. He either existed or he didn’t. There is no middle ground. If some people want to contend that he actually did not exist but is a made up myth, that is their right but they’d come up with all sorts of reasonable scholarship to contend with. The same sort of scholarship that actually says that Julius Caesar or Nero or Aristotle or Plato existed.

And, then, we come to the problem of whether or not the Jesus that is presented by the four Gospels, all of the subsequent accounts of Paul, and many other chroniclers of the age actually existed. People are welcome to believe what they want.

And, then, we come up with the problem of actually believing what this itinerant Jewish rabbi claimed to be real. Or not.

People are free to make whatever judgments they want.

But, make no mistake about it. If he was a real historical figure and if all of the accounts have value, he leaves us no alternative.

You may take umbrage at the historical record. You may think that this or that was made up. But, I invite you to look at all of the evidence and make up your mind. (A) Did Jesus actually live? (B) Does his life and message resonate? And (C) What are you going to do about it?

I’m sorry. Maybe because it’s because I battled for so long. Unwilling to open my mind and heart to see the truth because it would cause me to reorient my thinking.

This is ironic because I had this long held belief in education that the key to leaping forward … to reaching higher and deeper levels of understanding … was to surrender to cognitive dissonance and accept a breakthrough.

Either Jesus is who he says he is or he is not. It’s that simple. If he’s not who he says he is then I give up. He’s crazy or a liar and he suffered the ignominious death that he may have deserved in the day when blasphemy was a mortal offense.

If he is who he says he is, then it’s worth paying a lot of attention. A whole lot.

I try to do this but often fall short. Especially when he makes me pay attention to the main thing.

You see, the thing about the main thing is that we often don’t like to think about the main thing. We want to go to the other things. We like to negotiate that other things are worth thinking about before going to the main thing. After all, the main thing may be just too big for us to handle at the moment.

We’re really good about working hard to distract us from the main thing because we don’t like going there. It’s uncomfortable. It’s a thing that can flip us over and cause all sorts of disruptions to an organized life. Or, as Dawn (one of our ministers) said last week, “God ruined my life.” The post script, of course, is that she couldn’t imagine it any other way.

If you’ve been reading all of these essays over the past year, you know that I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to figure out the main thing. Is the main thing that this reality we think is real is actually an illusion and that the sooner I come to grips with that the sooner I’ll merge with the great Emptiness and experience bliss? Is the main thing that this reality we think is real is the only thing and we’re all just particles in motion, with no overriding meaning beyond being part of nature? Is the main thing survival of the fittest? Is the main thing to accumulate wealth so as to live comfortably or enjoy material things? Is the main thing to do everything I can to be happy because happiness is the greatest good?

I could go on but you get the point. I have studied and/or lived with and even tried to live by some of these things, all to no avail. In the end, they all collapsed as credible main things. I could not resolve them with what I know and have experienced to be true. Others are welcome to disagree. I am just testifying to what I believe.

Here, I’m going to leap over all sorts of stuff because it’s easy to say that once one becomes a Christian, the main thing is obvious. Well, I’ve been at this committed Christian thing for twelve pretty concentrated years now and I’m comfortable in saying it’s not all that easy. Not at all.

As many Christians know (and non-Christians may imagine), trying to really understand Jesus and all of that theology and all of the interpretations by a few zillion experts and in the light of so much hypocrisy and noise, is more than a small challenge. So we study and talk and pray and commit and make our way in the world through joys and sorrows, both leaping and stumbling, hoping to grow closer to the one we call Savior and have him work transformational virtues into our lives while we seek to bless those around us. A tall order but we have someone up to the task.

Which brings me to the main thing.

I’m reminded of City Slickers, a really good and funny, although a pretty cheesy, movie. Billy Crystal’s character, Matt, asks the wizened and hardened old cowboy, Curly, what the secret of life is. Curly says, “You know what the secret of life is?” And he holds up one finger. Matt asks, “Your finger?” Curly replies, “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean s#@*.” To which, Matt responds, “What is the ‘one thing’?” Curly says, “That’s what you have to find out.”

Well, no, it’s not perfect but we get the point. People often look for that one thing. That one unifying principle that will allow us to make sense of everything, to give ultimate meaning be the glue that holds everything else together.

Jesus actually tells us. He cuts right to the chase and he doesn’t mince words, despite how fast we want to run away from his message.

In fact, he would say that nothing else in his life or teachings or ministry would really make any sense without being fully grounded in this one/main thing. And that’s a mouthful.

Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your your soul and with all of your mind. Matthew 22:37

Period.

Next question?

Of course there is a Part B about loving others and it’s really closely related but it isn’t actually the main thing because without the main thing, Part B is impossible. We may try to come close to Part B and, in fact, entire political and economic and social systems have been dreamed about, with even attempts to implement Part B, without the main thing. They are frequently called utopias and they are also a vision for some who believe in the perfectibility of man without God.

Sorry. Jesus would profoundly disagree and I now believe he’s telling the truth. If I’m not being clear, I think he’s telling the truth not only because he believes it but because he’s God and should know. Which means I need to pay very close attention. Which wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t really believe in God or thought I could put God in a kind of parcel of my own making and avoid really taking him seriously. Well, I think that would be a mistake.

So, that brings us to this main thing and the thing about it is Jesus doesn’t mess around. He doesn’t equivocate. He says to his followers who are asking him to sift through all of the other things and to pick one and he gives it to them right between the eyes. There are a number of translations that try to pinpoint exactly what he said because he didn’t speak in English. But all translations basically say the same thing: Love God with everything you have. To make his point clear, he mentions things that are often translated as mind, heart and soul. He’s covering all of the bases unless someone were to say, “You mean, this part of me?” To which he’d reply, “You’re not hearing me. Your number one thing is to LOVE God with every bit and piece of who you are. Period. End of report. Hold nothing back. Don’t hide it away under a bushel or in the deep recesses of your psyche. Lay it on out there. Comprende? God comes first. Always and Forever. Don’t even think of jumping to thing two or three or seven or eight until you accept and live out number one.”

This presents us with more than a few dilemmas.

We can try walking through Door A which is basically, “nah, he can’t really mean that. It’s impossible.” Or, we can walk through Door B which is basically, “he really means it but it’s still impossible.” Or, we can walk through Door C which is basically, “he really means it and I need to pay attention because I have no clue as to how actually I can do that but I should not shove it aside because that would be a huge mistake.”

If it’s not clear, I’m a Door C kind of guy in this case. Having resolved that dilemma, a few dozen others pop open faster than we can imagine.

Chief among them is how to even know how to give every single piece of my mind, heart, and soul to anything or anyone? And right on the tail of that is how do I do that to some Thing or Being I can’t even see? And, right on the tail of that is what is meant by this kind of love in the first place and anyway? And, right on the tail of that may be that we have no idea where to begin, when you want the truth.

Well, maybe not. We may know where and how to begin and we may know what is meant by this kind of love and we may know who or what this Thing or Being is and we may have some clues how to give all that we have.

And, once we realize that, we may have a blueprint that’s not entirely hidden and we may be provided the tools with which to build this thing and we may have a lot of help along the way, we can crawl out of our fetal position, put our big boy and girl pants on and get after it.

Which is where I find myself.

Transparency Moment: I told my accountability partner and my wife that I had a goal in five years to love God with more of my mind, heart and soul than I do right now. Just laying it out there.

Along the way, I expect to discover metrics, methods, peaks and valleys as I pursue this goal. Admittedly and thankfully, I’m not starting at square one. And, here’s why.

I have actually experienced God’s overwhelming love. There is nothing like it. Nothing. It has poured through every nook and cranny of my being. It has showered and cleansed and permeated. It has filled my heart and mind and soul.

Granted, this is not an everyday occurrence. I have experienced this fully three times, in various forms and places. But, they are all the same thing. For a rational guy like me who is raised with logic and the scientific method and to be skeptical of all sorts of things, these are profoundly destabilizing and informative experiences. In fact, I believe God has graced me with these because I’ve been such a pain and a chore. A project, if you will. He tends to do this, I’ve discovered. Ask a fellow named Saul of Tarsus who was reborn as Paul. I have had a number of “spiritual” experiences long before and subsequent to these three but none come close to being completely enveloped in God’s love and in actually knowing what that love is and means.

It tends to get your attention.

For me, that’s a starting point but in some ways it makes following the main thing even harder. I know how deep and rich and eternal the whole thing is and I also know that I do not come close to having the capacity to respond in kind. That’s a problem.

But not a problem without a solution.

Because God (being God and all) knows this and he knows me infinitely better than I know myself. So, he is completely aware of both my gifts and my enormous shortcomings, the latter of which is especially sobering.

Which means he asks for the main thing and follows up with a very cool offer. It’s really that simple. He asks for that one thing and then gives me the keys to the kingdom. I could never believe it until it actually happened. I could have read a hundred books why this simple contract was pretty absurd (I probably did read those books) and have heard a hundred arguments that suggest I’m grasping at fantasies (well, Ok, Brad, that’s fine for you if you want to believe that, just don’t expect everyone to agree). But, as I’m breathing oxygen and have a loving family and dear friends and a life and all of that, it’s actually TRUE!

One contract. Keys to the Kingdom.

Not that all is roses and cherry blossoms and bliss and life lived happily ever after. Far from it. We experience sorrow and grief and suffering and temptation and struggle and sheer joy and indescribable beauty and everything else that is part of life lived on this side of eternity.

But, we are given the key and I know what it is and am told how to use it. In black and white and in full color. A beautiful blueprint that is both linear and mosaic.

So, I accept Jesus’ challenge and am on the pilgrim’s path, a bright star lighting the way, giving me direction and comfort, strength and hope. I try to give him the main thing he asks for and then he lets me in on the lesson plan of how to do it. Perhaps I will continue chronicling this journey on these pages. We’ll see.

Lord, none of this is easy but that was never a part of the deal. You offer us love and grace and eternity and give us the roadmap and tools to know what that means and how to get there. Please forgive us when we throw up so many obstacles and grant us the grace to see the whole thing through. We know you never promised it would be easy but you said the burden would be incomparably lighter that the alternative. I’m here to testify to the truth of that even though you don’t need me to say so. Just sayin’. Thank you. Amen.