BE YOURSELF

One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (called the Twin), was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" Thomas said to them, "Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A week later the disciples were together again indoors, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."

Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and look at my hands; then reach out your hand and put it in my side. Stop your doubting, and believe!"

Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

Jesus said to him, "Do you believe because you see me? How happy are those who believe without seeing me!"(John 20:24-29)Goodnews version

He is nothing like us in so many regards, and when we are at our weakest, the difference between how He treats us and we treat ourselves shows how different He is from us...

He does not make an unnecessary demand of us, He is like a mother who does not expect her 2 year old daughter to cook for her in the kitchen. The scripture says "He knows our frame...". At every stage of our life He understands our weakness and strength and deal with us accordingly with the hope that we will get to live above the level we currently are... He is just so different from us.

In the scripture above, our interpretation reveals that Thomas doubts (and we coin the name 'Doubting Thomas" for him) but Jesus was not looking at that, He rather prefer to quell his(Thomas) doubt to bring Him at par with the other disciples who already believe. Jesus was not condoning Faithlessness, doubt or unbelief, He would rather have us "believe without seeing Him"(John 20:29b) but in case we are like Thomas, He won't criticize us, make us see ourselves as babes in the faith or express disappointment that after 3years of intensive discipleship filled with so many signs and wonders and great revelations, this is the best we could do... No! Jesus won't do that, He would rather remove our doubt as He did to Thomas.

The beauty of what He did to Thomas is that He would gladly do that to all aspects of our lives... whether we are sick when we should be well; poor when we should be rich; borrowers when we should be lenders; students when we should be teachers; immoral when we should be holy; wicked when we should be righteous etc. For He is our high priest, our advocate, He understands all that we are facing(Hebrew 4:15).

All that we have to do is be like Thomas BE OURSELVES, be open and sincere to Him about who we are, what we think etc and when He reveal Himself- the truth, we should not harden our heart but take His help and move from where we are to where He would have us be.