Now, That’s Gospel.

This is the fifth installment in our series “Masterpiece”.

Good morning, peeps!

Do you ever read the Bible and think, “Okay, now. Whose account is really what happened? Which one is telling the truth?” That’s what I did a few minutes ago.

If you look at all of the Gospels, you’ll get a snapshot of how Peter met Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke share that Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee, saw Simon (Peter) and his brother fishing and said, “Come.” John? John gives a totally different account. The boat’s missing – no one is even putting a worm on a hook so there’s no place to insert the “I’ll make you fishers of men” statement. I don’t even think the word “fish” is used in the entire book. John is like, “…aaaaaand Simon met Jesus. Now, let’s talk about Jesus’ first miracle.” John got straight to what he believed was important.

That is, according to him.

What came to my mind as I was thinking about all of this was a conversation I had with my mother a few days ago. I was reminiscing about some of the things she did for us (her kiddos) and how special those acts of kindness were to me. We were saved-saved. Sanctified with a capital “SANCTIFIED”. The females had to wear dresses or skirts all of the time. I even wore a skirt to P.E. in grade shool. Yes, that was super fun when it came time to climb ropes. BTW, grade school boys are boogers. The crusty kind. My mom made sure we had the nicest saved clothes. We were the original “on fleek”. She even bought us designer skirts. Well, Oscar de la Renta was as designer as it got. She would do things like give us gum with goo in the middle when everyone else was chewing on Doublemint, made us deli sandwiches when everyone else had bologna or potted meat…and we had little purses with mirrors in them. None of the other kids at church had that. That was special to me. She would do…nevermind. You wouldn’t get it. Those things were small, but they were important. According to me. Even when I shared my memories with her, my mom didn’t understand how those things could matter so much. According to her, she was just loving on her children. According to me, she was a miracle worker. An angel sent from God…who sometimes wielded a switch.

If you pay close attention to the Gospels, they will say “The Gospel According to….” There has been plenty of debate about who actually wrote the gospels, but I won’t get into that here. Not because I can’t, but because that’s not what this blog post is about. Remember my first post in this series? I said, “I am a magnificent pile of ruins.” I thought about that sentence last night and wondered how ruined Peter must have felt after he heard that rooster crow. Can you imagine how noisy it would be if a rooster crowed after every time I messed up? Say it with me: noise pollution. Good grief. Anyway, I thought about how ruined Peter must have felt and thought about how ruined I feel sometimes. I am truly amazed at the ways God uses me because like I said, “I am a magnificent pile of ruins.”

Early this morning, God asked, “According to whom?”

–d.