A few weeks ago, I discovered the most powerful phrase in Christianity! I’m expecting some official organisation to validate this but in the meantime, sharing here will be a start. I was talking with someone about life and faith – you know, the light stuff! I was sharing how I felt that, whilst I were right on track with God, feeling excited and expectant for what Jesus was going to do, I still felt like something wasn’t quite right. I didn’t feel distant from God but I wasn’t sure I felt particularly close either – despite spending regular time in his word, prayer, etc.

It felt like “trying to run in a dream” which I’m sure is a sensation familiar to all of us. When you try and run in a dream, you KNOW that you can run, you know HOW to run but somehow your legs won’t do what you want them to. I was muddling through describing what it felt like, whilst my friend just sat there quietly, listening. The thing is, I didn’t really want advice or encouragement or something to action. I just wanted to tell someone.

What they said next changed everything.

My friend looked me in the eye and simply said 3 words: “Yeah, me too.”

Not particularly spiritual right?

I’m fairly sure it’s not even in the Bible (well, maybe in the Message).

And yet it was the most helpful, beneficial, load lightening thing that they could’ve said. I immediately felt God nudge me and say “See? Trust me.” It wasn’t that God had abandoned me or that I’d done something that had brought distance between us. You see, God often makes us uncomfortable in the “place” that we are in, in order to lead us to a new place, a new level of intimacy, a new depth of experience and understanding. That was all this was: not punishment or absence but presence and action.

Reflecting on that experience, it’s actually a little picture of the Gospel. Jesus is the great “Me Too” of God. Hebrews 4:15 says that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses”. He knows what we’re going through.

Not only that but because “he was without sin”, he alone is able to provide the strength we need to get through. How encouraging! Our High Priest uses phrases like “I know” and “I’ve been there”. He doesn’t look down on us but is sat eye to eye with us, in our weakness and our mess, saying the most powerful phrase in Christianity: “Me too”.