Searching for Enough: The High-Wire Walk Between Doubt and Faith

by Tyler Staton

For every day of Jesus’ life, God was his protector, provider, and the recipient of his exaltation. Another way of saying this is that Jesus lived without sin—and remember, I don’t primarily mean Jesus never told a lie, watched pornography in middle school, and got blackout drunk on prom night (Jesus didn’t do any of those things, but sin isn’t exclusively about morality). I also don’t mean that Jesus avoided ever choosing, even for a second, the self for the center (though, again, he did avoid ever doing that, but to focus on what Jesus didn’t do is to miss the point entirely). Jesus lived without sin, and that means that every moment of every day he chose God as the center of his life. Instead of the charade of trying to insulate himself with enough comfort and security that he could feel free, he lived freely by accepting God as his protector. Instead of the futility of human attempts at control, he chose God as his provider. Instead of the exhaustion of making a name for himself, he took the name God gave him and pointed at the giver of names. Jesus lived. He really lived. He lived like we were always meant to live. He lived full and abundant and whole. And he did it all so he could die, really die, die the death we were always meant to die, die completely and fully and finally.