I was, as I mentioned yesterday, out at a friend’s house on Friday evening and met a rather interesting man. He was, to give a few more details, a skater who came off his longboard (that’s a really long skateboard, by the way, and I didn’t know that either) and smashed a hole in his leg a few months ago. He also hit his head in the accident. Please remember this important detail! Anyway, you could see his leg right down to the bone. It wasn’t pretty. And he has some interesting spiritual views.
He, talking in metaphorical terms about his spiritual position, said that he can see Allah, Buddha, Jesus and a few others sitting in a room together, and, in his words, “they’re all cool“. Interesting! Oh, but that wasn’t the best bit. He then said, “and me, little old me. I’m stardust, floating on a ship“. Wow. Fantastic metaphor, or just a bit wacky? I’ll let you decide. Anyway, the best bit was the response from someone else in the room, who said, “So you were saying, you hit your head…” No prizes for guessing what they thought…
Joking aside, maybe that’s the unspoken view of a large number of people in our times. We live in an age of consumerist choice. We don’t like right and wrong. We like scales. Unfortunately, some things don’t work out that way. Buddha, Allah and Jesus can’t really fit in the same room. I don’t think any of them would get on very well. Buddha and Allah wouldn’t be much use anyway. In the book of John, Jesus is recorded is laying down an extraordinary claim:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.”
(John 14:6, New King James Version [NKJV])
Buddha and Allah do us no good. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. How do we know he the One in whom we can put our trust? We can see the prophesies that were written over hundreds of years that he fulfilled according to the Bible. We can attest to the experience of our lives. We can look at historical evidence. We can hear the testimony of others. We can ask Him to reveal Himself to us. He promises us that if we search for Him, He will reveal Himself. Scripture tells us so:
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
(Matthew 7:7-8, NKJV)
Jesus isn’t just referring to material things. Far from it. He promises that if we seek God, we will find God. It’s promised in the Old Testament too. Isn’t it good to know that amidst the confusion of this world, God promises that if we truly seek Him, he will reveal Himself to us if we choose to listen for His voice?
