Get a room!

I hate hearing people chewing loudly, or smooching sloppy, wet kisses in public spaces. It's a thing. So sitting on this train a couple of years ago, having to listen to a young couple expressing their infatuation with one another in a very loud, public manner was somewhat uncomfortable, to say the least. I very nearly got off the train at one of our stops to wait for a next train. "Get a room!" was my first thought. Or get another train, please... They didn't seem to care whether people feel uncomfortable with their public display of affection at all.

And, luckily, neither does Jesus. In John 17 we get a beautiful insight into Christ's prayer life. We are almost invited into the conversation Jesus has with the Father. And it is beautiful.

This got me thinking. Jesus' relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit wasn't something that He kept private. He tells us what He's praying about. He tells us what the Father is doing and saying. He shares the love, peace, healing and comfort that the Father lavishes onto Him. He never keeps it to Himself.

In fact, we're not only witnesses to this love relationship between the members of the Trinity, we're welcomed to join in and to become part of their love story. To be changed by it, formed by it, overwhelmed by it. And then to share it with those around us.

The Gospels often refer to Jesus going away on His own to pray, or to spend time with the Father. That should be our model as well. But Christ's relationship with the Father (and therefore ours), though fuelled in the quiet, intimate times spent with the Father, was not contained to those spaces alone. In His ministry on earth He shares the love of the Father with all who came to Him. And He invited them to become part of that relationship.

You're invited too. And those around you. And that's not awkward at all.

May you know and experience the love between the Father and the Son, and may it urge you to invite others into that love as well.

Selah