a week or so ago, my teammate madison gave me the book “This Is Awkward” by Sammy Rhodes to read. (if you haven’t read it, you totally should!!!)
i made it to chapter 11 titled ‘side-hugging Jesus’ and i asked myself “what could this chapter even be about? side-hugging Jesus? what?” and as I read it, my eyes were opened sooo much and so i wanted to share what i read and any encouragement that comes with it.
the author writes about how his mom had a charcoal drawing of Jesus and Jesus was holding a lamb. while Jesus was holding the lamb, he was resting his head on the lambs head and the lamb was resting on Jesus’ shoulder. then he went on to say how beautiful of a picture that was, but that he had a more realistic image that captured his relationship with Jesus.
he said the image he had in mind was a lamb side-hugging Jesus.
he said it was a depiction of the lamb telling Jesus he loved him, but to not come too close.
the good thing about this is that Jesus never keeps his distance from us and he never ever gives us side hugs. he will forever and always invite us into the fullness of his wonderful embrace.
AND THAT‘S SOMETHING TO PRAISE HIM FOR! COME ON SOMEBODY!
no matter what we do in this life, Jesus always comes to us with a full embrace. ALWAYS.
this gives me a picture of when we were in guatemala and the mayan woman greeting was literally grabbing the other persons elbow. when i would go in for the hug, they would so very clearly go out of their way to avoid that and go for the elbow.
i see us (humans) as the mayan women. we’re avoiding the embrace of Jesus to go for something more comfortable for ourselves— the side-hug.
i really think that one of Jesus’ love languages would be physical touch— well at least one of his top 5. now if you know anyone with physical touch (selina morgan) as one of their top 5 love languages, they wouldn’t appreciate it if you completely avoided the physical touch that they need to feel loved. if we just go in for that side hug when he wants a full on hug, i’m sure Jesus doesn’t feel loved by that.
Jesus wants to hug us because we’re his children and his friends. he doesn’t give his embraces to only certain people, he desires them for everyone it’s just whether or not you accept it. he also doesn’t look at us and say “we’re not there yet. this is awkward i just met you.” he just comes right in and goes for that full embrace and it’s just whether or not we go for that embrace or if we go for that side-hug.
do you find yourself side-hugging Jesus or accepting His full embrace today?
