I have recently been stuck on some questions that I am hoping to clear up.

If I believe today that a man named Jesus walked the earth, lived an exemplary life of perfection, and died on the cross for my sins… What took me so long? Why did I spend my whole life learning about him as if he were just a regular man who made history like Julius Caesar, Alexander Bell, or Barack Obama?

Something I have had to come to accept recently is that I wasn’t uneducated on who Jesus was. Theologists and archeologists, Christian and non-Christians, can confirm the facts that there lived a man named Jesus. I was in the same boat as a non-Christian archeologist: I didn’t feel the need to believe that he knows me personally, or that he came to heal the broken, to seek the lost, and to save the dead, but I knew he lived. Wasn’t that enough to get me into Heaven?

Over time I started to realize that 2.2 billion people believed that Jesus saved them. Either 2.2 billion people in the world that I lived in were crazy, were liars, or were living by the truth of God’s word.

My story then goes to explain how I went to university without having a relationship with my parents, no friends, low grades, bottles and bottles of alcohol stored in my room, and cannabis that could last me for 6 months at a time. Long story short, I was at a point where I really had nothing to lose. I hated my life, I hated everyone else, I hated school… So what was the point?

I heard about Jesus once or twice. I didn’t believe in a relationship with him though. It wasn’t worth it. I hated the thought of him and everything that had to do with living.

A man once said;

“You can choose to not believe in gravity, but once you jump of a cliff and are 1 metre away from the rocks that await you, you’re going to say to yourself ‘I was wrong’.”

Unfortunately, once you’ve jumped, you can’t go back. The thing is, life gives you the freedom to choose whether or not you want to jump.

The reasons I chose Jesus after he had already chosen me since day 1 of the worlds’s creation:

As I said, I was at a point where I really had nothing else to lose. As I fell deeper and deeper into a hatred for my life, I began to be swallowed up into a whirlwind of emptiness. Alcohol and weed wasn’t doing it anymore. I got used to feeling like I was escaping with both of those and it wasn’t enough for me. What happens when your cup has been empty for days? You thirst. You need something to fill your cup. What happens when your cup has been empty for weeks? You’re dying of thirst. Literally, dying. At this point, you’re looking for ANYTHING to fill your cup. For me, Jesus was my last straw. I had nothing to lose by choosing to close my eyes one day, and to paint this picture in my head: a man taking on the weight of my mistakes and my regrets, my foolishness, my rude and broken heart, my humiliations, my envies and my temptations.

How did he do it? How can a normal human man like Julius Caesar, Alexander Bell or Barack Obama save me from all my pain? Well, let’s give this the benefit of the doubt and say the following:

A regular man named Jesus walked a long, rugged road carrying a tree cut and nailed in the shape of the cross on his back. This wasn’t any ordinary walk with a heavy piece of wood on his back. This was a walk he knew would be his last… as a man at least. It doesn’t matter what God you believe in, but you must know that God can somehow communicate with people. This God, who Jesus called “Father”, told him it would be his last. The thing that brings me to a state of awe is the fact that God never told Jesus he would be punished if he didn’t follow his orders. He didn’t pull him by the ear to do this. Jesus made his own conscious decision to walk his last road.

Now on this road, he was spat on, ridiculed, humiliated, whipped, laughed at, etc. In essence, he was bullied. How many of us have been bullied? What do we do when we get bullied? We either get angry enough to stand up for ourselves and yell or punch our bully, or we get sad enough to walk or run away. But this man, this strange man named Jesus, endured it and continued on his walk.

The word endurance means “suffering patiently.” This doesn’t mean Jesus had a pebble in his sandal and it was just bugging him. This meant that Jesus waited while he carried this cross-shaped tree, while he was humiliated and bullied, and still he suffered patiently without saying anything except for “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus knew exactly what he had to do even before they grabbed his arms violently and hammered nails through his delicate, miracle-performing hands and his feet that took him everywhere to bring good news. And so Jesus, being this strange man who chooses to suffer patiently, opened his arms up, and invited the entire world inside by allowing himself to be crucified. He suffocated on his last breath for me, saying, “It is finished.” What’s finished? My battle is won. My price is paid. My war is over. He went to Hell (the real one, not the one you think this life is), and defeated the enemy right in his tracks. He conquered it all for me. Why? To give THE PEOPLE the benefit of the doubt that he might not be who he says he is: God.

Indeed, Jesus was no ordinary man at all. He came back, to prove my doubt wrong. If he gave me the benefit of the doubt, then why shouldn’t I give him the benefit of the doubt? So if this strange, enduring man named Jesus is God, than who is God, and why should I choose this God instead of others?

This is the only God I know I get to call a Father when my parents aren’t enough. This is the only God I know that even with all my mistakes, He is still proud of me somehow. This is the only God I know who came down in human form to perform these “magical miracles” that people keep talking about. This is the only God I know who humbled Himself enough to suffer through what I suffer through as a human. This is the only God I know that doesn’t ask for my wage, but He asks for my heart. 

So why Jesus? Because he let me choose whether or not I wanted him, he didn’t force himself into my heart. He invited me into his arms, and ever since, my life has never been the same. Life doesn’t get easier, I won’t make you that promise, but life becomes worth living because someone who made me gave me a PURPOSE. Someone who loved me so much couldn’t stand to see my cup empty and so He filled it with all His love, His forgiveness, His light, His power, and now my cup overflows because a GOD has chosen to love my heart.

This God isn’t just for me. There is enough of Him. He is enough. This God chose you too. Yes, YOU reading this. He has a plan, and He needs you. He wants you. I’m asking you to look in his eyes and know that you’ve done okay. You’ve done enough, because He’ll do more for you. Where you fall into your weakness, he promises to lift you up and use HIS strength to keep you standing strong on a rock in the middle of an ocean thats waves won’t settle. He’ll even conquer death for you. And I promise you, if he had to carry that cross that is full of what you think is your mistakes so that he could save you all over again, even if it were JUST you left, he would do it all over again, just for YOU because YOU ARE WORTH IT. Don’t you dare tell me otherwise. YOU ARE ENOUGH because HE is enough and HE has chosen YOU. You are valuable…

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So… Do you believe in gravity?