Listen

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father; that will be enough for us.”

Jesus replied, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you all this time? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I have spoken to you I don’t speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me does his works. Trust me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on account of the works themselves.

John 14:8-11

Think

I can identify with Philip, demanding to see or to know just one more thing before I’m truly satisfied. Curiosity, after all, is a great and wonderful gift from God, and is often one of the keys to a deeper faith. At the same time, I know there is a difference between curiosity and skepticism, between inquisitiveness and suspicion. Why is it, though, that we imagine things to be more complicated than they are? Why do we sometimes think we need to know more or understand more to believe more or trust more?

If we know Jesus, Jesus says, we know God. God the parent, Jesus the child, God the Spirit are one and the same. We can put our trust in the idea that knowing Jesus is the same as knowing God; we can believe that Jesus and God are one. Or, as Jesus says, we can put our trust in Jesus because of what he’s done. Having faith and trust in Jesus would be enough, Jesus says. That would be all we need.

Peter Hanson

Pray

Jesus, you are all we need.

Help me to be satisfied in you, in all you give me, in all you do — and have done — for me.

Amen.

Go

Go with good courage, not always knowing where you’re going, but trusting that God’s hand is leading you and God’s love is supporting you.

inspired by the “Prayer of Good Courage” by Erik Milner-White (1941)