40 Days with Jesus
“During the forty days after He suffered and died, He appeared to the apostles from time to time, and He proved to them in many ways that He was actually alive. And He talked to them about the Kingdom of God.”
Acts 1:3
Well over 40 days have passed since we celebrated Easter and we found ourselves wondering what those 40 days had been like for the disciples. Often the glorious news of the Resurrection that we celebrate at Easter abruptly ends after the bank holiday. But, as this verse from Acts reminds us, Jesus was alive and He spent time with His disciples testifying to His own resurrection by eating and drinking with them. We wanted to ensure that those 40 days didn’t pass us by but that, like the disciples we also spent time with Jesus, enjoying the freedom that the cross and resurrection brought us. What better way to do that then to hear from 40 different people about how they spend time with Jesus? In the hope that it would encourage us to spent time seeking Him, build faith in us that He wants to meet with us, and equip us to meet with Him in new ways.
It’s been a beautiful journey hearing from such a range of people who meet with Jesus in so many different ways and over those 40 days we have been greatly encouraged and inspired by their stories. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed! If you haven’t managed to see them then follow us on Instagram (@theboshamgathering) or find us on Facebook.
Here’s some things we learnt from that time…
1. 40 days is long!
Perhaps because we’re living in a moment where our concept of time and days passing has been flipped on its head? But 40 days seemed to last forever. This both humbled and exited me.
Up until this point I had thought that 40 days was a short amount of time; a little over a month which can pass us by easily. But over the last few weeks I’ve come to realise it’s a lot longer than I think! I’ve been aware of days passing during lockdown that I haven’t noticed before. And it felt long!
Jesus was in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by the devil for 40 days, which is an extraordinary length of time to suffer that kind of physical and mental pressure. It was a situation that only arose because Jesus became a man to reconcile us to the Father. There were days when the weight of that sacrifice fell heavy on my heart and I sat silently in awe of His willingness to pay the price for me. Long before He endured the cross, He humbled Himself for me.
Reflecting on what those 40 days must have been like for the disciples, I acknowledged that it probably wouldn’t have felt long enough. In their humanity it would have been easy for them to feel guilty after Jesus had left them for time they had wasted. But I came to realise that no time was wasted. I’m sure there are questions that they wish they’d asked but the reality was, and is, that time spent with Jesus, whether that’s in conversation or in quiet, does not go to waste. We just have to look at the fruit in their lives to recognise that. These were men who were identified in Acts 4 as people who had been with Jesus. The thing that equipped them for their ministry didn’t come from knowledge or study or gifting; it came from relationship.
2. “I believe God is so up for meeting with me and is so intertwined in my being, that he’s got very good at loving me in the ways I need at the moment.” Becky
Something that has really stood out to me over the last 40 days is the diversity in the ways we meet with Jesus. It was something I expected to find and part of the reason for doing it in the first place was to encourage each other in all the different ways we meet Him. Although I expected it, I was not prepared for quite how beautiful it would be to read the variety of ways that Jesus meets with His people.
We asked in the final days of the series for people to share their favourites. This was not an exercise in popularity. Nor was it a tactic to increase engagement with our posts (we’re not very savvy when it comes to that kind of thing and it’s not really our aim). We asked that question because we wanted to see that diversity in action. To acknowledge that the beauty of relationship with Jesus is that it’s unique to each one of us.
Reading each one, I found myself celebrating the breadth and depth to meeting with Jesus that was on show. As Becky pointed out on day 2, Jesus is very good at loving us in the ways that we need. That’s something I’m going to remember moving forward for the days when I don’t know what I need; I can trust Him to.
3. There’s no formula
Underlying all 40 of the posts, sometimes acknowledged but always implied, was the message that there is no formula.
That’s pretty hard for us to compute when the world that we live in operates very differently. If you want to be promoted at work you have to earn it; putting in the hours, working late into the night, impressing your boss etc. But with Jesus it’s not like that. We don’t have to work to win Him over.
It’s hard not to fall into the mindset that there are certain things we must do in order to spend time with Jesus, but the truth is that He made a way for us to be with Him without having to jump through a whole load of hoops first. Sometimes we force ourselves to crawl through those hoops, but He doesn’t ask us too.
During the 40 days, I was sat at the kitchen table on my laptop. I can’t really remember what I was doing but it wasn’t anything particularly significant. I’d been there a while, writing some stuff when I felt the presence of God physically as I sat there. It was a moment I’d been waiting for and I was excited to know Jesus close. I wanted to be there forever and wondered how you could sustain that feeling. But you can’t can you? Especially as I needed the toilet, but I didn’t want to move. I was worried that if I moved that would be it and I didn’t want to miss a moment with Jesus. So, I sat there until I could not hold it in anymore and went to the toilet. In all honesty, I prayed on the toilet (don’t we all?!) and thanked God that He meets us…me in the kitchen. After that I found myself standing in the doorway of my room wondering what I should do next. I felt like I should do something significant or go for a walk or write something. I’d just met with God at the kitchen table and that moment was over and it felt like I shouldn’t just crack on with my day, but I should do something significant or worthwhile.
But then I told myself that nothing had changed. Just because I didn’t physically feel the presence of God anymore, I was still in His presence. So, I decided to acknowledge that. I shut my bedroom door and knelt on the floor and thanked Jesus for the cross and for His presence. And then it came, again, I felt His presence. Instead of just knowing He was there, I felt it. I lay on the floor for 20 minutes just basking in it. It was awesome! There seemed to be no purpose to it. I kept telling God I was listening; I was willing, and I was ready. But His response was that He knew I was all those things, but this time wasn’t about telling me to do something. It was just about being together.
I want that to be my daily reality. Not the lying on the floor bit, that could be quite inconvenient (although… why not?!), but I want to recognise daily that I live this side of the cross. I don’t have to do stuff to enter God’s presence or to be with Jesus. I just have to recognise He is with me, even when it doesn’t ‘feel’ like it.
We’re going to unpack this a little more in our next blog because it’s so important that we understand the freedom we have to be in relationship with Jesus.
But in the meantime, have a read of Hebrews 10:1-18:
“And when sins have been forgiven, there is no
need to offer any more sacrifices” v18
Lou Callaghan