The best representative of Jesus I ever met

Since no one reads this blog except me, I figured I might as well put something here to help me remember something good in a world full of things which seem pretty bad.

Jim (not his real name) came to me one day with a "big problem" - he and his wife weren't getting along. Jim is a rather tall, fairly stout man who, on a standardized test might score a little bit slower than most people, but who is perhaps the most sincere, kind person I have ever met.

I knew Jim's children and as Jim went on to explain how his wife had begun not coming home after work, and showing up in public with a scumbag, I began to wonder what might happen if he were forced to raise them on his own.

I also waited to hear Jim say something like "will God hate me if I get a divorce?" Neither those words nor any remotely similar ever crossed his lips. Jim asked me to call his wife and talk to her (which was a very odd exercise in nonsense) and asked me to pray repeatedly so that his marriage would not fail.

The relationship between Jim and I went on for sometime in this manner - he would stop me at odd times and ask me to help him and often reluctantly, I would.

One day was particularly hard for Jim as his wife had assaulted him with a heavy object and his oldest child called the police. His deep blue scar and swollen eye made me wonder how on earth he could remain loyal to such an evil person.

As things progressively worsened, I referred Jim to an attorney and advised him to at least take his kids and flee for safety. Our final visit precluded the necessity of his having to do this because he found his wife on the sofa in the morning - dead from a drug overdose.

I haven't seen Jim in over 2 years and I never tried to keep up with him, but I will never forget him. Every time that I think life would be so much easier on the other side of marriage, I remember this good man who was far more faithful to his wife than I would ever be. Why?

Well, personally I think that the Roman Governor Felix's proclamation to St. Paul wasn't that far off. Felix told Paul, "much learning has made you mad!" Paul went on to tell Felix that he really wasn't crazy and that Jesus really did rise from the dead. We never learn if Felix understood and believed in Jesus, but he was right about "much learning". I don't know if Jim ever finished high school. Certainly, he never attended college and yet he had more kindness, love and wisdom in his little finger than I will ever have. Jim believed what the bible said - lock, stock and barrel. Jim didn't need lectures on dispensational theology and he probably didn't even know what a hermeneutic was.

If I were to find myself in heaven today and were to ask Jesus something like, "Why didn't you give us a real, physical example for our time of how to live?" I think He would laugh and step aside to reveal a smiling Jim, and say, "I did."