It's Exhausting Looking For Help We Already Have

​One of the most astonishing statements Jesus ever made is one I think I spend a lot of my life overlooking.

Imagine walking beside Jesus for three years. Watching him heal the sick. Seeing him calm storms. Listening to him teach with authority no one had ever heard before. Watching him forgive people everyone else had written off.

After watching all of that, if someone had asked me, "What's the one thing you would never want to lose?" my answer obviously would have been very simple.

Jesus.

And then Jesus says something almost impossible to believe: "It is for your good that I am going away."

Really? The world needs less men who can make the lame walk and the blind see? How could anything possibly be better than having Jesus physically present with me?

But Jesus wasn't finished. He said he needed to leave because the father would send another Advocate.

I've read those words countless times. I've heard sermons about the Holy Spirit. I've nodded my head in agreement.

Yet, if I'm honest, I don't think I live as though I actually believe what Jesus said. Because if Jesus believed the presence of the Advocate was more helpful than his physical presence beside me, why do I spend so much of my life looking somewhere else for help?

Louie Giglio describes the four roles of the Advocate as follows:

The Advocate is our helper. The one who supplies what I don't have.

The Advocate is our comforter. The one who brings peace even when nothing around me feels peaceful.

The Advocate is our convictor. Not merely exposing where I've wandered, but reminding me who I am in Jesus and calling me back to that identity.

And the Advocate is our empowerer. The one who doesn't simply encourage me to try harder but fills me with the very trying power that raised Jesus from the dead.

Think about that.

When I don't know what to do, I already have a helper. When anxiety convinces me everything is falling apart, I already have a comforter. When shame tells me I'll never change, I already have one reminding me who I am and leading me toward him and away from condemnation. When I feel too weak to keep going, I already have an empowerer.

And yet—how often do I forget? Forget and search.

I look for another podcast. Another book. Another expert. Another productivity system. Another opinion. Another distraction. Another voice telling me what to do.

None of those things are bad. Many of them are gifts. But they make terrible replacements for the Advocate.

It's almost as though I've convinced myself I have to go searching for an advocate, while forgetting Jesus already gave me one.

I think Jesus knew how exhausting our lives would be if we spent them living in constant search of an answer to our struggles. I think he knew it would be exhausting because he knew searching for the answers in THIS world would leave us always coming up empty.

So Jesus said I need to leave. I need to go to another world. And when I get there, I'm going to send you an answer from that world that will forever eliminate your need to search for one.

And yet....

I still spend many days searching. Searching for the answer. Searching for the power to solve what many days feels like unsolvable problems.

All the while, living in me is the very same power that allowed a man to raise himself from the dead.

Unanswerable doesn't always mean there is no answer.

Sometimes it means there are no answers to be found where one is looking.

Jesus left—but told us where to forever find him.

And yet, too many days I find myself living like that's his deepest held secret.

It's not.