Brave Enough To Be Bliss

What Is the Significance of the Road to Emmaus? (christianity.com)

Why Does Jesus Not Reveal Himself Until Dinnertime? Jesus does not reveal Himself to the men while they are on the road. Instead, He waits until they have arrived at their destination and are relaxed, preparing to enjoy a meal, before He allows the men’s eyes to be opened. Many scholars believe this parallels the discernment process for many of us. Sometimes, when we cannot understand something, we gather information. Then it must settle within our hearts. Only when we have fully “digested” what we’ve learned, allowed it to sink in, does the truth come out.

The men do not seem extraordinarily surprised when they finally realize it had been Jesus that whole time. As they asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (v. 32).

It took a little time for their hearts and their heads to catch up with each other, but they finally did, and they knew the truth completely.

Then, fired up with their new knowledge, they rushed off to tell the apostles the good news.

Why at the Table? Scholars believe the fact that Jesus chose to reveal Himself at the dinner table also says a great deal.

First, there is something relaxing about the fellowship of the table. There, people are calm, unhurried, there to fill their bellies and rest after a hard day. It’s a place of intimacy and friendship, a place where relationships are strengthened.

Perhaps this is a metaphor for the church and the sort of evangelism Jesus knew would spread best — rooted in relationships, person to person.

We conversed a few more times over the next week and I shared these emails in follow up to those conversations.

On Thursday, November 9, 2023, 9:14 AM, Ginger Bliss wrote: I wanted to share a few excerpts of the book with you and a couple other things I've read in case they could help stimulate some thinking and perhaps encourage you that a different future, one full of joy, hope, love, and light is truly possible and that you are deserving of nothing less than that. We all need help. We all need someone to talk to and who can help us see things that sometimes we cannot see for ourselves without some prompting. For what it's worth, I have learned that being my imperfect, vulnerable, scared, mixed up, messy self creates a level of trust with everyone I interact with that leads to the best relationships I have ever had. I enjoyed listening to you tonight when you acknowledged all your feelings including depression and fear of talking with a therapist because that felt real. You have been through too much not to have experienced a wide range of emotions and still be in a place where you're figuring it out is a real and understandable place to be. Just this week I realized things that I didn’t know previously that should have been very obvious, so I realize I have a lot of work left to do and I'll be doing it for the rest of my life. The key is, I'm willing to do it because I've seen the difference facing my pain has made in my life and my relationships. I may never have it all figured out, but I know more today than I knew yesterday than I knew last year than I knew five years ago. And every step has led me one step further into joy and fulfillment and is leading me to my life's purpose. I have been unemployed for seven months now. I'm having to tap into my retirement to get by financially and I'm grateful that I have that. I don't even know what type of job I want. And yet, I can walk into this next phase of my life with confidence knowing that I will figure something out. I always have gotten through whatever challenge I've been faced with in the past and even when it's not easy, I will figure it out. I am living one day at a time staying in the present knowing the future will work itself out along the way. I have a guy living in my apartment, sleeping on the couch who can't stay there now because he failed a background check that I knew nothing of because I have a compassionate heart for anyone who is struggling. I am learning boundaries, but clearly needed some better ones in this case as now that I'm having to, I have found community resources that I could have referred him to initially instead of taking him in personally. I'm even more of a mess than you probably already know. There have been so many things you have said to me that have helped me or shown you are introspective and can figure things out. You didn't ask for my opinion, but I'm going to give it to you...you appear to be stuck just like is sung in the NF Happy song you sent me. You're choosing to stay where you are in life because you're too scared of what you may have to face if you went deep to figure it all out or of the unknown of a future different than it is today. It's a natural tendency for humans to avoid change and potential pain, but unfortunately that's how we get to joy like we haven't experienced before too. The choice is always yours.

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