Here is a thought: “Not to decide is to decide.”
That quote, coined by American Theologist Harvey Cox implies that that is the way life is. We are in constant movement. We never remain still. We are either moving forward or going backward. There is no stasis. We must decide on many things: who we are, what life means if anything, and what we want from life.
To achieve these things, we must take a stand. We must claim ourselves and our life.
Jesus faced the same situation in the world as you and I, so it’s essential to ask how Jesus made his decisions. How did he become the person he was? How did he take a stand?
The fact is that we become who we are through OTHER people. It is how others treat us as infants and afterward that we learn of our worth. If we aren’t taken care of, we internalize the twe are not worth VERY much. We all know about ourselves from others for better or worst.
Jesus went through the same experiences by learning from other people. For example, Jesus received his identity as the Messiah and Son of God at his baptism in the nearby Jordan by His cousin, John
In the beginning, like us, He was confused by this revelation, so he went into the desert to pray. After his experiences in the desert for 40 days, he emerged confident in who he was and what he was called to do, so he began to act.
Jesus had come to the crossroads of his life. As we often do, he had to withdraw alone to a deserted place and figure out the next steps.
And the next steps were CLEAR to Jesus. First, he needed to gather followers around him… and he DID.
Jesus taught by asking questions. When the first disciples walked after him, he turned and askedthem what they wanted. They asked where he was going and lived. Jesus’ answer required exploration and questioning. He said: Come and see!
He then called good working-class fishermen to Follow Him… and they did. They were attracted to Jesus not because He had all the answers but because He had the right questions.
From then forward, Jesus drew on his absolute faith in God the Father, convinced he would never be alone. Yet, even when that seemed accurate, He never yielded to despair. God is ultimately the only reality we can trust to get us through anything. Jesus believed that from the first moments of his ministry to his death as a criminal on the cross.
