By Brother Brian Shimer

Brother Stanley in A Song of Ascents tells the story of a Hindu government official, his wife and their 8-year-old girl at the Sat Tal Ashram. After a personal interview with Jones, the girl asked her parents, “Why did you go see Brother Stanley?”

Her father replied, “We went to talk about our spiritual problems.”

The little girl replied: “Why didn’t you come to me? I know the answer: Bring Everything to Jesus” (p.235).

Don’t you love her answer?

If there is anything that epitomizes United Christian Ashram to me it is this — “bring everything to Jesus.”

“Jesus is Lord,” we repeat often, and at the Christian Ashram, we practice allowing Him to be just that within the prayer groups, the times of fellowship, the prayer times, the teaching times, the mealtimes, the family times, the game times, etc. We bring everything to Jesus again and again, and Jesus makes all the difference.

It never ceases to amaze me how Jesus impacts people during the weekend or week together. Jesus uses everything to help each of us be enlarged in our thinking, in our experience of Him, and in our love for one another.

A dear brother was struggling. He had spent all his 32 years “thinking” his way through life as an engineer. He believed feelings were scary, so he denied, pushed them down, and denounced them. He and I walked together to teach him to feel. In one of those beautiful moments, he connected to the emotion of joy for what he said was the first time in his life, and said, “I feel enlarged inside.” I would say, this man encountered Jesus, who is the man of Joy.

How often has Jesus enlarged my own heart with his presence at the Christian Ashram! The most beautiful thing happens, as a result, our witness is increased. People see the change. And it all occurred when we brought “everything to Jesus” up the mountain.

Might this have happened to Bartimaeus, in Luke’s account (Luke 18-19)? Did sighted Bart perhaps run ahead, shouting “I’m healed!” to his friend Zacchaeus? Is this why Zacchaeus, impacted by Bart, was so desperate to see Jesus? And look at the results…

Continue to bring everything to Jesus, friends, and see what He will do…