The Rev. Ed Dobson has spent 2008 living like Jesus, praying daily, eating kosher, not working on Saturdays and not shaving his beard.

The Rev. Ed Dobson has spent 2008 living like Jesus, praying daily, eating kosher, not working on Saturdays and not shaving his beard.

(RNS) The scraggly guy stood at Ed Dobson’s door, asking for money. He said he was a Vietnam vet and needed bus fare for a medical appointment in Lansing, Mich.

Problem: It was the same story the same guy told three months earlier, when Dobson gave him $15. Dobson figured he probably blew that on booze and would do so again.

Problem No. 2: Jesus said, “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” This time, Dobson gave him $20.

Living like Jesus ain’t easy. Especially when there’s a presidential election involved. Not that living like Ed Dobson is a piece of cake.

“The way of Jesus is very hard,” Dobson says, sipping espresso in a coffee shop. “If you take his teaching seriously, it will mess you up.”

Dobson found that out when he spent 2008 emulating his spiritual master. He chronicles his journey in “The Year of Living Like Jesus,” just published by Zondervan.

If you have the idea Dobson sets himself up as a role model of perfect piety, that’s not what he means. He says his Jesus year was a litany of mistakes and failures, whether botching his kosher diet with sour cream and chili or doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

“I don’t think I did everything right or had all the answers,” Dobson says in his disarmingly direct way. “But I did try as best I could to wrestle with Jesus’ teachings.”

As Dobson talks, a Scottish soccer jersey hangs off his thinning limbs. His eight-year bout with Lou Gehrig’s disease has been a wrestling match of its own. It has taken a toll on Dobson’s already slight body, yet it hasn’t dimmed his good humor, deep faith or strong spirit. Those were great assets during his Jesus year — especially after Election Day.

Dobson’s vote for President Obama — his first ever for a Democratic candidate — brought down hails of scorn from outraged conservatives. Dobson is, after all, a former megachurch pastor who helped run the Moral Majority before later, with fellow evangelical icon Cal Thomas, disavowing the marriage between evangelicals and Republican politics.

Less noisily, moderate conservatives thanked him for being public about a vote they cast secretly. His book devotes a chapter to his decision, including a lengthy study of biblical passages on abortion. While disagreeing with Obama’s abortion-rights stance, Dobson decides his positions on poverty and peacemaking align most closely with Jesus’ teachings.

Dobson writes he was bothered most by the criticism that came from “religious people (who) completely ignored everything else I had to say.”

He still hears it.

“People will often ask, `What do you think of Obama now?’ My answer is I would not want to be president. I pray for him and honor him.”

When Dobson recently sent out a Twitter message decrying the bad things being said about Obama, the outrage returned.

“Most people said, `I’ll pray for him, but I’ll never honor him,”‘ Dobson says. “I said, `If Obama is the enemy, you’re supposed to love him.'”

Author A.J. Jacobs can relate. The Jewish writer’s best-selling book about obeying the Hebrew Scriptures, “The Year of Living Biblically,” inspired Dobson’s Jesus version.

“I definitely admire his bravery,” says Jacobs, who may make a speaking appearance with Dobson during an upcoming book tour. “It’s extremely difficult to live biblically.”

Jacobs expects Dobson’s book, like his own, will inspire some readers to try a little — say, giving up gossip for a month.

“You don’t have to grow a huge beard and walk around in a robe and sandals (like I did),” Jacobs said. “But it will improve your life if you try it.”

Dobson agrees. He continues his Jesus way in many ways. Over his year, he mostly prayed words of Scripture, such as “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me,” and still does.

He came to a greater appreciation of other faiths through praying the Catholic rosary, the Orthodox prayer rope and participating in Jewish sabbaths.

Focusing on Jesus also helped him deal with his disease.

“Having read the Gospels over and over, you have the idea that God limited himself to human flesh in the person of Jesus,” he says. “So the frustrations I have on a daily basis — I find encouragement from the fact Jesus must have faced the same thing.”

(Charley Honey writes for The Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich.)