To Trust In Christ

Myself and many of my friends and family proclaim to be Christian. I have thought much on the subject as I have seen myself and others struggle with that from time to time. To be Christian is not to be perfect but it is to be striving to be better. To do the things that Christ did. To develop the attributes of Christ within us. This is where we are all different and must take that into account when dealing with our fellow man. Each of us is on our own path and we are each in our own level of development. Being Christian is a process and that process begins with finding Christ and then learning about Him and then striving to live like Him all-the-while trying to build enough faith in Him to let go and allow Him to carry us through that which we cannot navigate on our own.

While studying the life of our savior we can find many attributes of Him that we might want to develop in our own lives. We may find that we need to ask "what are the attributes of Christ?" "How can they be developed in ourselves?" James 1:5,6 gives us great advise as to how to start - Pray!

5 ^aIf any of you lack ^bwisdom, let him ask of God, that ^cgiveth to all men liberally, and ^dupbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6 But let him ^aask in ^bfaith, nothing ^cwavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

We can pray and ask our Heavenly Father for assistance in where we can start. We can pray for answers to questions that may develop along the way. As we study the life of Christ to find attributes we wish to develop, we should continue to pray for help and answers and the strength to continue to change and be more like Christ.

 Mark 5:21-43 contains one my favorite examples of how Christ acted. For me, so many things can be learned about our Savior in these verses. Setting the scene we must back up to chapter 4 and understand that the multitudes were surrounding Him all day and He preached unto them until the evening had come. At this point, He sailed to the other side. I imagine Him to be tired after a day of long preaching and he must have been because the scriptures tell us that those on the ship had to wake him because they feared the storm.

Now to bring some context to this, we understand that those whom He called as Apostles were on board with Him. He had called them and set them apart to perform sacred duties. They had been with him for some time and had seen the miracles and presumably been taught that they too had the ability to call on God for assistance in creating miracles when appropriate. At this time the storm arose and they did not think to do anything about it themselves, only to give in to fear, but luckily they did think to ask Christ who was physically on board with them.

Here is what I find thoughtful and profound about this:

• Men called and taught by Christ himself were fearful - This lets me know that it is OK for any of us to be fearful if these men were. If Apostles of the Lord can struggle, we should not be so hard on ourselves or others when any struggle occurs
• Christ did NOT get mad and furious with them for waking Him to handle what they could have themselves. This tells us that Christ cares about us at ALL times in our lives

Moving into chapter 5

Once on shore, presumably in the early morning, Christ is immediately called on again to perform a miracle. He is asked to free a man of the demons that posses him. He does this and then gets back in the ship and sails back to the other shore where He is once again enthralled by the masses. At this point He has had twenty four hours of preaching and miracle working with what appears to be very little rest. Here we pick up at verse 21.

Jairus catches up to Christ and explains that his daughter is dying and he would like Christ to come and heal her. Our Savior agrees to the request and sets out to the house of Jairus. Not long into the trek and fighting to get through the crowd of people so tight it is impossible to take a step without bumping into someone else, Christ stops and asks who touched Him. His apostles almost seem to laugh at Him because they think it is impossible to differentiate one touch from another in the crowd and yet He does.

Thoughtful and profound:

• Christ was tired and surrounded by many when He was able to hear the plea of one individual and set out to help him
• While focused on the errand to help Jairus  He notices someone else who needs assistance and takes the time to speak with the woman who touched His garment in order to be healed.

Finally at the home of Jairus, He finds the family distraught and in tears. He tells them the little girl is not dead and they laugh at Him. At this point, Christ sets the scene for the miracle to take place . He charges everyone to leave the home so peace my abound, then He brings two of His Apostles and the parents of the little girl into her room where He commands her to arise. When she does, Christ tells her parents to feed her.

Thoughts and profound:

• Emergencies aside, it is always appropriate to set the scene or prepare oneself and the area in order to have the spirit. By removing the loud individuals from the home, peace could set in so a miracle could take place
• Christ brought in the parents. Not only does this allow for witnesses to the miracle but it show how thoughtful He is. The daughter of Jairus was only twelve, can you imagine her waking up to see three strange men standing in her room? With her parents there, she awoke to familiar faces that would keep her calm.
• Christ gave instruction to feed the girl. He knew she needed nourishment straight away. Once again showing how He knows us and our needs, most of the time better than we do.
• He brought in Peter James and John - He trained them. Showed them how to perform such things for they would need to be able to so when He was no longer with them

So from this set of verses we can see many attributes of our Savior that we might want to work on ourselves.Our Savior was:

• compassionate toward others
• aware of the needs of others
• aware when someone needed Him
• not quick to be angry when someone "disturbed" Him
• patient 
• teacher
• able to help others even when on the way to another assignment

These are just a few of the things to be gleaned from these verses, there are many more. What do you find?

Once on the path to knowing Christ, our faith begins to build at a pace that is correct for us and our circumstances. As our faith builds we will have many opportunities to strengthen it as we come to depend on our Savior. Depending on our Savior can be a tough thing at times. We tend to think we know best for ourselves but many times what we think we know is not what our Heavenly Father has in store for us. He knows us better and will try to guide us in the path that is best but we need to let the Savior steer without fighting the direction. This can be hard but I know that as we do attempt to let go more often, the easier it will be when we really need to completely trust in the Lord.

The Man From Snowy River. A great movie with a great story and recently I discovered that it has a great analogy concerning our ability to let go and allow the Savior to carry us. I heard a talk by Terence M. Vinson -Meekly Placing Our Total Trust in God - Where he likens the Man From Snowy River's big ride to how we should allow Christ to carry us through whatever it is that we are needing His help with. Take a few minutes to listen to this talk to hear the analogy. I cannot do it justice so please listen, I know you will enjoy it. The analogy begins a few minutes in after some introductory words and will end before the entire talk. The whole talk is worth the listen but if you only have time to get through the analogy, you will enjoy that.

For reference, here is the clip of the big ride

And if you would like to read the poem that inspired the movie
Click HERE