I’ve come to see that my favorite character in the chosen-after Jesus,of course-is Matthew. Here was a person who was hated and rejected by everyone. The Romans didn’t like him (although one had come to), the Jews didn’t like him, because he was good at his job. The worst of it all is the fact that his own family didn’t like him or want him. I believe that he (according to the way he is portrayed) had a form of Autism known as Aspergers. While I don’t claim to be Autistic I do kind of understand how he must have felt. Before he saw Jesus his only friend was a stray dog that had started to follow him. I’m sure that he felt like the entire universe hated him. I too have felt that way, like no one cared if I was alive or not. I so much can identify with this character. Shy, awkward, lonely, desperate to know what my purpose in this world is-where am I suppose to fit in at.
And then he saw Jesus.......
From that split second on his whole world began to change. He became brave enough to go to his mother and speak with her about the stirrings that had started within him,(even though she rejected him yet again). He began to question life as he had known it. He wanted to know more about this person called Jesus of Nazareth. He climbed up a latter and sat on the edge of a roof to see. I don’t think he would have done so if it had not been for that one split second down by the shore. He wanted to know who was this amazing man that-for the first time in Matthews life-really saw him and smiled at him.
He was so moved just by the sight of Jesus, that when Jesus stops and calls him by name and asked him to follow him, Matthew hesitates just for a second and then drops EVERYTHING and immediately began to follow him.
I wish I had been as brave when GOD called me to follow.......
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