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Jesus Life 87 - Jesus Army

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From the blog of <strong>Jesus</strong> Fellowship<br />

leader, Laurence Cooper<br />

SO, I’M in the kitchen of my friends’ house,<br />

chilling with my homeboy, Jack, who is two<br />

years old and learning words.<br />

Word for today is “me” and Jack is really<br />

enjoying that word.<br />

“ME ME ME ME!” he screams as he yanks<br />

open the fridge door.<br />

“ME MEEE ME MEEEEE!” he yells as he pulls<br />

himself up on the table to fall face first into the<br />

toast.<br />

“ME ME ME MEEEEEE!” he shouts as he rubs<br />

a nose-full of snot lovingly across my new jacket.<br />

“ME ME ME!” he declares, smiling, in the<br />

middle of the kitchen.<br />

He is two, he is triumphant, he is enjoying his<br />

possession of the word ME; he is discovering his<br />

personhood. I enjoy his moment of unashamed<br />

and entirely appropriate glorification of self. And<br />

then I feel a sermon coming on.<br />

“Jack, Jack. I am very glad that you are<br />

enjoying ME so much. It is right that you should<br />

do. But, without wanting to rain on your parade,<br />

there are one or two words of caution I would<br />

like to urge on you.”<br />

Did his little smudgy face look a fraction more<br />

serious of a sudden?<br />

“Much as you may delight in ME at present,<br />

in years to come you’ll find that ME may<br />

become more problematic. It’s ME, you see, that<br />

struggles to come to terms with himself. It’s ME<br />

that comes between us and an experience of<br />

unselfish love. It’s ME who throws hard words at<br />

others, who cheats and sneers and hurts others.<br />

It’s ME who finds it hard to quit and finds it<br />

hellishly difficult to finally have to admit that it’s<br />

ME who has a problem.<br />

“So enjoy ME Jack, you’ll spend the rest of<br />

your life wrestling with him.”<br />

But Jack had left the room some time<br />

previously to destroy an eight-wheeled excavator<br />

next door in the lounge.<br />

JL<br />

www.jesus.org.uk<br />

He is two, he is<br />

triumphant, he<br />

is enjoying his<br />

possession of the<br />

word ME<br />

Laurence Cooper is a leader in the<br />

<strong>Jesus</strong> Fellowship. He lives in a<br />

Christian Community house,<br />

a very big house in the country<br />

stuffed full of <strong>Jesus</strong> radicals like himself.<br />

READ HIS BLOG:<br />

laurencecooper.wordpress.com<br />

<strong>Jesus</strong> <strong>Life</strong><br />

31

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