Come and See

One of my favorite comedians, Brian Regan, does this comedy skit about walking on the moon.  He talks about those times when you're in a group of people and everyone tries to one up each other with the stories of their lives.  He talks about wanting to be one of the guys who walked on the moon so that he could just end each of these conversations with, "I walked on the moon."  Competition over, you win.  Isn't that what we do though?  We compete with each other to see whose life is more interesting.  We go back and forth like this hoping that others will notice just how awesome we are.

I've been reading a book entitled Love Does.  It's written by this guy Bob Goff.  When Dos Equis came up with the idea for the most interesting man, I think they based it loosely off this guy's life.  One of the recent chapters that I read was about being secretly awesome.  I loved the concept.  He points out that we're often motivated to tell others about our accomplishments and achievements in order that others can begin to see just how awesome we are.  Just like Brian's comedy skit, our conversations are filled with attempts to show others that we're incredible and worth attention.  Bob challenges this idea and encourages us to find contentment in being secretly awesome.

I'll admit that I often fall into this temptation.  I've been blessed to have some incredible adventures and stories over my life and there are times where I share these in order to garner admiration and respect.  Jesus had entirely different way of doing things.  He routinely chose humility.  In Isaiah, it says, "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2).  Yet there was something so attractive about him that he drew crowds everywhere he went.  In John, it talks about how two of John the Baptist's disciples were following Jesus one day and they asked him where he was staying.  Jesus responded, "Come and you will see."  This invitation radically transforms their lives.  One of these disciples turns out to be Andrew, one of the twelve.  Later, after Jesus calls Philip, Philip goes to Nathaniel and tells him that they've found the Christ and to "come and see."  At this point in the gospel, there is no record of Jesus performing miracles or even teaching for that matter.  Yet, already, these disciples are committed to following Jesus and to learn from him.

You see Jesus didn't need to tell others about his accomplishments or miracles.  He didn't sit down with the Pharisees and compare who was greater by how many people they had healed or demons they had exorcised.  He simply lived an awesome life that drew crowds of people.  His only publicist (if you want to call it that) was a guy who ate locusts and baptized people in a river.  Yet his fame continued to spread and people kept leaving everything and following him.  Even when people started to abandon him and reject him, he didn't stop what he was doing.  He knew his purpose and he was fine living a rejected life.  He was content being secretly awesome.

Our society has trained us to believe that living a secretly awesome life is a poor decision.  Think about it.  When applying for a job, we pack our resumes with every accomplishment and achievement we can think of.  When pursuing a significant other we try to hide our faults and showcase our strengths.  When seeking a promotion at work we convey why we are more deserving than others.  Lets face it, the person who has achieved more and has grander accomplishments is the one who gets the job, the spouse, the promotion etc.  What if we did things differently?  What if instead of boasting in our accomplishments we simply lived a "come and see" life?  What if our lives were filled with so much love for God and for others that people were naturally drawn to us and thereby pointing them towards the Kingdom of God?  This is the kind of life I want to live.  I want to be the kind of person who seeks out others for the sole reason of giving them an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.  I want to be the kind of person who actively seeks to draw out the beauty within others.  I want to bring restoration and healing to the wounded and broken.  I want to live in a such a way that when people look at me, they see Christ.  I want to live a "Come and see" life.