Experiencing Jesus IRL (In Real Life)

We can all experience the love of Christ no matter what our reality is, writes Jackie Walker

I’m sitting at my dining room table writing this. At the other end of the room, my 13-year-old daughter is busy, guarding far-flung galaxies, wrestling with gorillas (the hairy kind) and gaining gold medals in ‘Grand Prix’ motor racing.

Of course, none of that is IRL, but is in the ‘virtual world’ that she and her generation have grasped so readily and are transported to daily in their recreation time.

However, for me, ‘the dinosaur’, the virtual world is not a place I want to embrace. For me the ability to touch and feel and smell and taste as well as to see and hear is vital to my enjoyment. My experience of trying on the VR headset recently ended in disaster as I promptly fell over back into the chair as I faced the stuff of nightmares, when a very real-looking great white shark came at me as I stood in a flimsy cage.

“Just close your eyes,” they shouted, and thankfully there I was back in the room, safe and dry with all limbs still attached! It’s fun, they said! Just not for me!

It’s easy sometimes to find ourselves living a ‘virtual Christian life’ where we become satisfied with flitting in and out, observing from a distance what God is doing, watching from the sidelines, seeing miracles happen. We see others excitedly pursuing God, yet miss out on the reality of all God has for us personally.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that you may have life and have it to the full,” says Jesus in John 10:10 (ESV). The life that Jesus gives us is full and exciting. Look at those who encountered Jesus – their reality was transformed. The disciples were ordinary men with ordinary lives, yet they became part of something world-changing and new.

As they journeyed and lived with Jesus they didn’t know from one day to the next what was going to happen! And Jesus said they would go on to do even greater things (John 14:12).

And yes, we can experience it too – that one-to-one encounter with Jesus – no matter what our reality is!

My grandmother was an amazing woman – she touched people’s lives around the world and saw miracles happen, healing miracles and wonderful miracles of provision. She saw lots of people come to faith though her witness and yet she only travelled from the island of Jersey to the UK or France on holiday a handful of times. She was not ordained as a ‘minister’, she had a basic education, no degree, and she had health issues. She was just an ordinary woman, wife, mother, sister, daughter … but she grasped the fact that when you ask Jesus into your ‘everyday’ he readily accepts the invitation.

Her prayer every day before she got out of bed was, “Lord, what are you and me going to do together today?”

Will you be bold and brave enough to ask the same, to encounter Jesus IRL?

Jackie is married to Dave and they have a teenage daughter. Jackie serves alongside her husband, who is the senior pastor of the Elim Church Romsey. She also serves on the Aspire National Team.

First published in the May 2023 issue of Direction Elim’s monthly magazine.

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