{"id":4288,"date":"2012-06-11T21:06:56","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T21:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/?p=4288"},"modified":"2012-06-11T21:06:56","modified_gmt":"2012-06-11T21:06:56","slug":"date-with-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/06\/date-with-jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Date With Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo\"<\/a>When my best friend Julie and I were 12, she confided in me a painful secret. We were walking home from school and I could sense something was wrong. It wasn\u2019t like her not to tell me everything. Finally she spat it out, she said, \u201cMy dad is in the mental hospital.\u201d I knew she was referring to her biological father, a talented jazz musician she rarely saw.<\/p>\n

Her face scrunched up, it looked like she was in physical pain, like the time we stepped barefoot into those cactus needles. \u201cHe went crazy. He thinks\u2026\u201d She couldn\u2019t say it, whatever it was, it was too horrific.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? What? He thinks what?\u201d<\/p>\n

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. \u201c\u2026he\u2019s Jesus!\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay I\u2019ll admit it. Jesus\u2019 claims of divinity have always ticked me off. I don\u2019t get why he\u2019s been exalted when others making similar claims are locked away in loony bins. It\u2019s one of the justifications I\u2019ve used to avoid him.<\/p>\n

Recently, I decided it was time: I had to go back and read every word Jesus said.<\/p>\n

For three days, I pored over the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John like I was debating whether to meet him for coffee at the end of the week.<\/p>\n

I can hardly believe what I learn. He asks his disciples, \u201cWho do you say that I am?\u201d and they\u2019re the ones who say \u201cmessiah.\u201d He asks several times, \u201cWho say the people that I am?\u201d And when rulers call him \u201cKing of the Jews\u201d he says, \u201cIf you say so.\u201d\u00a0 I count about a dozen variations of exchanges like this. I find it truly remarkable that I\u2019ve gone through life thinking that Jesus went around saying, \u201cI\u2019m the messiah.\u201d Here I thought I was being set up with some big-headed ego maniac, or maybe even a crazy man. But it\u2019s not like that. I can meet Jesus worry-free.<\/p>\n

– Corinna Nicolaou<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my best friend Julie and I were 12, she confided in me a painful secret. We were walking home from school and I could sense something was wrong. It wasn\u2019t like her not to tell me everything. 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