Jesus Christ, the embodiment of God’s shalom, invites all people to come and receive divine peace in the midst of the difficult questions and struggles of life. Follow Christ in the way that leads to God’s peace and discover the blessings of all of the dimensions of salvation. Generously share the invitation, ministries, and sacraments through which people can encounter the Living Christ who heals and reconciles through redemptive relationships in sacred community. The restoring of persons to healthy or righteous relationships with God, others, themselves, and the earth is at the heart of the purpose of your journey as a people of faith. (Doctrine and Covenants 163:2a-b)

It’s rather amazing what we will talk about with others.  We talk about the weather and sports and politics. We talk about the latest neighborhood or company news and gossip. We speak of the new technology breakthroughs and scientific discoveries, and so many other things.

More personally, we share about the birth of our child or grand­child.  We share about our vacations and our hobbies and the movies or plays we have seen.  We share about our kids’ sports teams and their school successes.  We share about our hopes and dreams for our children and for ourselves.  We share our parenting frustrations and our marital or other relationship problems.  We share about our physical ills and our surgeries.  And we share about our sense of personal inadequacy and even our failures.

There is hardly anything is our lives that we don’t share with others.  We want someone else to share our excitement and our sorrow, to share with us in the things that matter in our lives.  And we feel valued when people choose to share with us.  Just watch how the new parent or grandparent proudly shows the pictures they just happen to have of their new daughter or son, granddaughter or grandson—and how they are surrounded by a crowd who want to see the pictures and who share their joy.  Even within a culture like ours that praises individualism so highly, we live our lives in sharing relationships.

Yet something different happens to many of us when it comes to talking about our faith in Jesus Christ.  We hesitate to speak of even knowing Jesus, let alone of telling people how Jesus makes our lives different—how we have peace in times of great stress, how our family life has a new and enlivening quality about it, how we see new purpose and hope in our lives, and the variety of other ways our lives have been enriched as we have come to know and follow Jesus.  Among fellow church goers we may affirm how important Jesus is to us, but among others, we are usually silent.

How is it that we can sing and pray and preach and testify among ourselves about the ways Jesus has come among us and transformed us, yet be so silent among our family and friends and acquaintances?  Part of it may be that we accept our culture’s categorizing of faith as a purely personal matter.  But that doesn’t really explain it.  We share all the time about really personal things, but not about our faith.

Could it be that we are missing that sense of discovery and adventure that marked our faith when we first encountered Jesus—that we no longer pray and study and serve and share our experiences with the same passion that we did when everything was new and we felt a strong sense of calling and possibility?

Imagine a little child discovering a butterfly.  In her excitement, she grabs your hand and pulls you to come see what she has discovered.  She has no prepared speech, no agenda to pursue, just the joy of discovery and the desire to include you in her joy.  That’s what our sharing should be like—come see what we have discovered and share our joy.

May Jesus come among us to revive our sense of adventure and discovery.  May he fill us with new experiences of his presence among us.  And may our joy and excitement overflow to others.