‘WHAT-IF?’ PEOPLE

Cheryl Forbes once said people who live imaginative lives are ‘what-if?’ people. They respond to ideas and events with a ‘what-if?’ attitude. They behave in ‘what-if?’ ways. ‘What-if?’ is a big idea, as big as God, for it is the practice of God. Our God thinks, “What if I make the universe? What if I make people in my own image? What if, when they sin, I don’t give up on them?”

Jesus comes to people and invites us to be ‘what-if?’ people. He said to His early followers, “I want you to imagine a kingdom -- the real magic kingdom. Imagine a kingdom where the last are first, the least are greatest, the servants are heroes, the weak are strong, and the marginalized are loved and cherished. Imagine a world where outsiders become insiders, where people who lose their lives end up finding them, where people who die to themselves and their guilt and their sin and their selfishness end up being brought to life. Imagine that your little broken story can become part of a larger story that ends well.”

Then in the most unimaginable moment in human history, Jesus said to Himself, “What if I die on a cross and take on Myself all that sin and all that suffering and all that pain and all that guilt and all that death that now crushes the human race?” And He did it. They put His body in a tomb, and three days later God said to Jesus, “Now what if You get up?” He got up, and death has never been the same. Life has never been the same.

-- John Ortberg in “All the Places You Go”


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