When I was a young adult, I remember reading a book by Francis Chan called The Forgotten God.

And he gives this analogy in the book that has stuck with me for decades.

He talks about going to a basketball court.

And he tells everyone at the basketball court, hey, I have the God of basketball living inside of me.

And I might be embellishing this analogy a little bit because I haven't read it a long time.

But essentially the way I remember it is, he goes to this basketball court and he tells everyone, hey, I've got the god of basketball living in me. And everyone at the basketball court would obviously kind of chuckle and be like, well, what are you talking about? If that's true, then sure, you can be on my team, Mr. God of basketball living inside of You. And so they pick him and he starts playing and he looks terrible. Like he can barely dribble and he can't make a layup and he shoots a three-pointer, any airballs. And the point of the analogy being, uh, everyone starts to be skeptical of whether this guy really has the God of basketball living in him because he doesn't look any different than anyone else playing. In fact, his life may even look a little bit worse. Again, I'm probably

butchering the analogy, but it was something to that effect. And the point that Francis was making in

his book was, we as Christians claim to have the God of the universe living inside of us. And so as we

go about our day, and we proclaim this

truth that we believe, that God of the universe lives in us, the Holy Spirit, lives inside of us.

Well, then if that's true, or if we make that claim, people will probably start to wonder,

well, how does your life look any different than mine? If you claim to have this God,

the God who holds the stars in his hand, the God who created the galaxies just by breathing,

the God who told the oceans to come this far and go no more, like that powerful God, if he really

lives inside of you, how come your life looks like mine? How come you're just as sad and depressed and

angry and short-tempered and addicted? And all the things that I struggle with, how come your life looks like mine. How come you're just as sad and depressed and angry and short-tempered

and addicted and all the things that I struggle with, how come your life looks just like mine if

you've got this God of the universe living inside of you? There's this verse in the scriptures in the

New Testament where Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for his death. You would see in the

New Testament where Jesus is trying to do this pretty constantly, especially as he was nearing the end of his ministry and life on earth, where he was telling them, like, it was almost like he was trying to prepare them mentally and emotionally, like, hey, I'm not about to be here anymore. Like I keep bringing up this whole crucifixion thing, this death thing, and you don't seem

to be getting it, but I just want to keep it at the forefront of your brain. Like, I'm not going to be

here anymore. And you would imagine if you've spent three years with Jesus and he's feeding the

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