{"id":13938,"date":"2024-07-25T08:51:03","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T12:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/?p=13938"},"modified":"2024-07-25T08:54:36","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T12:54:36","slug":"ten-million-dollars-or-five-minutes-with-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/life-lines\/ten-million-dollars-or-five-minutes-with-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten million dollars or five minutes with Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"h423040-p1\" class=\"permalinkable\">Every now and then, something happens to remind us of our absolute faith in God. It might not even be something monumental. In fact, most times it is something insignificant, a moment that would be easy to miss. But if we\u2019re paying attention, we just might get a spiritual \u201cpayout\u201d that will sustain us like a life preserver when we are tossed on a rough sea, and the sea certainly seems to be rougher these days.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h423040-p2\" class=\"permalinkable\">I was in the kitchen, washing vegetables and getting ready to make dinner, when my teen daughter started pondering who she might pick if she could have dinner with someone famous, living or dead. We bandied back and forth, tossing out different names and genres of people, and I said: \u201cI hate to pick the most obvious person, which would be Jesus.\u201d That prompted Chiara to ask: \u201cIf you could have one million dollars or five minutes with Jesus, what would you choose?\u201d Without hesitation, of course, I said: \u201cJesus.\u201d I wasn\u2019t looking at her, but I guess that answer gave her pause, so she went a step further: \u201cIf you could have 10 million dollars or five minutes with Jesus, what would you choose?\u201d To which I quickly said \u2014 without looking up from my prep work: \u201cJesus.\u201d And from there we moved on, although the conversation stayed with me.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h423040-p3\" class=\"permalinkable\">Later that night, I found myself coming back to it and replaying it in my head. On one level, I was not at all surprised by my answer because who wouldn\u2019t take five minutes with the Son of God over anything else, material or otherwise? But another part of me was fascinated. So often I feel like my faith isn\u2019t as deep as it should be, especially during these tumultuous times in our country and our world when we seem to be caught in some sort of existential death spiral. I wish I could let go of the anxiety that has me in its grip lately and trust that, in the words given to the great mystic Julian of Norwich by God, \u201cAll shall be well.\u201d It\u2019s not easy, and most of the time I feel like I\u2019m failing and falling despite my best efforts. And then along comes a moment that stops me in my tracks and reminds me that no matter how things may feel on the surface of my spiritual life, deep down there is an abiding faith that knows without hesitation or question where my true loyalty lies.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h423040-p4\" class=\"permalinkable\">When I decided to search Julian\u2019s famous quote for deeper context, I came across a beautiful General Audience given by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 on this very topic:<\/p>\n<p id=\"h423040-p5\" class=\"permalinkable\">\u201cJulian of Norwich understood the central message for spiritual life: God is love and it is only if one opens oneself to this love, totally and with total trust, and lets it become one\u2019s sole guide in life, that all things are transfigured, true peace and true joy found and one is able to radiate it,\u201d the late pope said, talking about the challenge of why evil and suffering exists.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h423040-p6\" class=\"permalinkable\">\u201c\u2026 God\u2019s promises are ever greater than our expectations,\u201d the late pope continued. \u201cIf we present to God, to his immense love, the purest and deepest desires of our heart, we shall never be disappointed. \u2018And all will be well, all manner of things shall be well.\u2019 This is the final message that Julian of Norwich transmits to us and that I am also proposing to you today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"h423040-p7\" class=\"permalinkable\">It\u2019s a message that continues to speak to us today, when the level of anxiety in our world has reached epic proportions. Talk to friends and family members and the sense of dread is almost palpable, thanks to a culture where violence and division and false promises are the norm. And, so, like Julian, we come back to God. Again. Always.<\/p>\n<p id=\"h423040-p8\" class=\"permalinkable\">Put aside all that the world holds out to you \u2014 both the terrifying and the tempting \u2014 and spend five minutes with Jesus. Choose that.<\/p>\n<p>This column originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/evangelist.org\/news\/2024\/jul\/25\/choosing-five-minutes-with-jesus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the July 25, 2024, issue of The Evangelist.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@sonjalangford?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Sonja Langford<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/round-timex-analog-clock-at-233-eIkbSc3SDtI?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every now and then, something happens to remind us of our absolute faith in God. It might not even be something monumental. In fact, most times it is something insignificant, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[80,330,101],"class_list":["post-13938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-lines","tag-faith","tag-jesus","tag-life-lines"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ten million dollars or five minutes with Jesus &#8211; Not Strictly Spiritual<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sometimes the depth of our faith is revealed in the most unusual and unexpected ways. 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