Being a pastor’s kid, or a PK as we call them in my family, life has thrown a lot of pressures and expectations my way. One of them being the challenge of answering one of life’s most difficult questions: do I believe everything I have grown up learning about Jesus and the Bible? Are my answers my own? As a senior in high school, I am fortunate enough to have a clear path of my next five years—attend Messiah College for 3 years and then transfer to Thomas Jefferson to complete my master’s program in occupational therapy. But even with the dreaded “senior” question answered, I still felt like something was missing, almost like a doubt. This feeling drove me to search and discover Christ in a way that I never had. I started reading A Case for Christ by Lee Strobel from an objective viewpoint and meeting with a woman from my church to discuss the book once a week. But it wasn’t through the book that I understood the answer to my question. Don’t get me wrong; I have benefited wonderfully from my weekly get-togethers, but something was said from a voice that I have literately heard from birth. Who would have guessed that my dad’s analogy of Justin Bieber living in my town would have explained how Jesus could be fully man and yet still be God.
Let me set the scene for you. I attend a high school that has a whopping total of 800 people in grades seventh through twelfth. We say pop instead of soda, and a vacuum is also known as a sweeper. Football and hunting make up our culture, and if you weren’t born here, you probably don’t belong because everybody knows everybody. Now my dad had asked, “What if Justin wanted to move here but didn’t want anyone to know it was him. He wanted to have a normal high school experience. What would he have to do to make that happen?” Automatically the small group of us started shouting out answers: play football, kill a deer, wear ripped jeans and flannel, color his hair, maybe even get plastic surgery, and above all, NOT USE “BABY” AND “OH” IN THE SAME SENTENCE! But the thing is, even if he did all of these things, he would still be Justin Bieber with all his beliebers. He would still have the bank accounts, Selena Gomez, guards, house, and fame even though he would have chosen not to use any of it. It’s the same way with Jesus. When he came to Earth as a baby, he still had power and authority as God, but he chose to lay it aside and not use it while he was on Earth. This doesn’t make him any less God. It makes him a loving God. Suddenly, I don’t doubt what I have been taught because it makes sense. Yes, I still have questions, plenty of them. But I’m starting to appreciate them because they force me to discover new things about Christ every day.
