"Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" 1 Peter 2:4-5
In this human existence, there is no such thing as perfect - but God's love makes that fact tolerable. In a fallen world, there is no perfect product, no perfect idea, no perfect relationship, no perfect effort. In church there is no perfect program, no perfect sermon, no perfect worship service. We are constantly swimming in a life of imperfections. Yet from the moment we can think and act we are conditioned to pursue perfection. A 95 isn't quite 100, our bodies don't look like the airbrushed ones in magazines, our families don't operate like the ones in the TV shows. And so we constantly seek to be more, to be better, to be closer to perfect. The whole idea is that we can somehow "arrive" if we work hard enough. We can achieve perfection in our education by getting the highest degree, or in business by getting the next promotion, or in sports by reaching the next level. But perfect isn't there when we arrive! Ask anyone who's "made it"! Perfect is just a mirage to keep us chasing, the end of a rainbow that can never be reached. The Good News is that God doesn't ask us to be perfect as the world sees perfect, He commands us to be perfect as He is perfect - in love. To experience the freedom of the Christian life, we must abandon the paradigm of pursuing advancement, achievement, and success as if these paths can satisfy the longings of our souls. They cannot and will not. When I stand before my maker (both now and at the end) I will not be judged by how closely I came to being what my fallen mind or this fallen world considers ideal. I am seen through the lens with which God sees all creation - that of a relationship of love. My 6 month old son is perfect to me. Not because he doesn't cry or spit up or have leaky diapers or sleepless nights, but because in my love for him, I am satisfied with his very existence as my child. My love will not be dictated by whether or not he becomes flawless in the areas which babies tend to have "issues". May our hearts, energies, ideas, and efforts go toward being perfected in Love with our Savior, not being perfected into the image that our confused minds and world would have us seek.
Once while tent-camping, I awoke after a rainy night to puddles around the edges of the tent and water dripping through the top of the tent. Due to haste and laziness, the tent had not been secured effectively with stakes at either the base or across the rainfly. Though the tent looked good the night before, it only took some moisture, wind, and my restless movement through the night to make my shelter a pathetic sponge to the rain. Since then I've always been very careful to make sure my tent is tightly anchored at all the important places. I wish I could give the same attention to my life of faith: Learning to drive my roots into the trustworthy bedrock of Christ. Alas, I take shortcuts instead of putting in the proper time and energy to ensure that my soul is anchored in the firm ground of God's love and power. When skies are clear and the breeze is light, my shelter works just fine without being adequately staked. But when conditions become less than ideal, my refuge from the elements can quickly become a sad excuse for a dwelling. A camp that is not secure is no camp at all. For me, these anchors always include prayer, study, and Christian accountability. Prayer keeps my imagination, outlook, and sense of reality rooted in a living relationship with my maker, savior, and friend. Study aligns my efforts, ideas, and attitudes with the word and will of God. Christian accountability offers me mutual support, alternative perspectives, and a tangible sense that I'm not alone. Like soil that holds, they have to be consistent and strong. To neglect any one of them loosens the hold on the Rock and risks my slipping into the mercy of the conditions around me. These anchors cannot be afterthoughts. They are not optional enhancements that one can choose to employ if they have extra time. Prayer, study, and christian accountability are what make the difference between a sturdy shelter and a flimsy toy that can easily rip, tear, leak, or fall under pressure. Lord, give me the discipline to regain a well anchored camp that can withstand the onslaught of challenging conditions.
"Well done, good and faithful servant!" - Matthew 25:21
Faithfulness is what God asks of us, it is what determines whether or not we've accomplished our purpose, and it is what earns the reward of our Maker's approval. It is a spirit of faithfulness that produces obedience. The difficulty with faithfulness to God is that it is terribly narrow minded. The first call to faithfulness toward God is: "There are no other God's before me". Faithfulness toward God means that there is only one master, one Lord, one to whom we are called to be ultimately faithful. Thankfully, God's infinite wisdom and love directs us to be the best person we can be when we are faithful to Him. Our righteousness in relationships with others is at its richest when we are being faithful to God and God alone. Still, it is impossible to be faithful to one God without simultaneously being unfaithful to a host of others. I cannot be faithful to a God of generosity and a god of greed at the same time, either he will hate the one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other (Matt 6:24). In ministry, I struggle with such singular and focused allegiance. I want to please God and please the people around me. I want to speak truth without hurting anyones feelings. I want to make kingdom-of-heaven building decisions and still appease the kingdom-of-this-world. The harsh truth is that I can't. I have to make a choice: Who will I be faithful to? And because the only one who has ever been able to make my life provide real and lasting good for myself and the people around me is Jesus Christ, I'm going to be faithful to Him. Even if it means I'm unfaithful to some other power, value, or norm. Even if that power, value, or norm is embedded in the attitudes of the people I care about and serve. For I cannot be eternally faithful to anyone I love and care about if I am not first faithful to the God who knows how to love them perfectly and into wholeness. God, grant us the grace to be faithful to you alone in our families, our church, and our world.
There are things about me that I sometimes wish would just magically be changed. Vices, struggles, characteristics of my fallen state that I would rather not have to deal with. There are powers that rage within me that reek havoc for myself and the people I care about. Why was I made this way? Why can't I pray my way out of this difficult condition of the body, mind, or soul? I even become frustrated and angry with God that I'm not "fixed" when I ask to be. Shouldn't God be just as interested in delivering me from human weakness as I am? But I'm finding that the Lord doesn't always heal and transform me according to my specifications and timetable. My creator's idea of making me whole might even be more advanced and informed than mine! He knows my inner-workings, my intricate design, my inside and out. Sometimes this means that I need to expand my expectations of what God's healing might mean for me. It might not include an instant and drastic miracle with satisfying before and after photos. It may not even look like a steady improvement between what I was and what I will be. God's ministry to me may hurt, it may require deeper faith, it may demand a higher level of humility, discipline, or inter-dependence with others. God may not give me easy solutions to a complex issues because my journey to wholeness may bear more fruit over the long haul than in the short term. And while I believe that we will be made whole in the blinking of an eye at Christ's triumphant return, perhaps it is more important in this life to follow in faith the wisdom of an eternally Great Physician than to be set on experiencing the perfect health we're so intent on achieving.
"Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" Gal. 6:2
In the church, we like to appear as if we have it together. I've never seen a place where it's more important to people to APPEAR perfect. The reasoning ends up something like this - If Christians have come into contact with the God who desires us to be whole and who is capable of anything, then it only makes sense that we should be "put together" if we have put our faith in Him. If we appear that we are not "put together", it would not only reflect our failure in faith, but perhaps even God's failure to make us whole. So even when we are broken, lacking, and mired in life's struggles, we choose to look like Jack and Jill the perfect church-going saints of the neighborhood.
This flawed approach to our self-presentation within the church is not only dishonest, it stops short the power of grace in our lives. The scriptures are clear: we are sinners, weak and poor, in need of a strong and righteous God who comes to us in Jesus Christ. This fundamental identity as needy and dependent people who are redeemed by the Savior is the basis for being members in the church of God. The point at which our neediness for and dependency on God becomes masked by a masquerade of normalcy is the point at which we remove ourselves from the penetrating reach of transformative grace. But when we come in the raw - placing our insufficiencies, insecurities, and indiscretions before others who bear the same - we leave room for divine love to redeem and save. To bear one another's burdens suggests that we all have burdens and that the purpose of the church is to have a place - not to hide or deny them - but to share them. This can only be done in the context of a community of trust, respect, and mutual knowledge of the endless affection of an eternal God. But when it is done, when we lean on the Spirit of Christ in one another, we experience a release from the bondage of having to maintain a false sense of achievement and an invitation to the freedom of boasting in nothing but Christ crucified. Not only that, but we become an image of the invisible God to a world where masks are more naturally displayed than the truth of our faces.
Please swallow your pride
If you have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you won't let show
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9
Could it be that God can use my weakness more effectively than my strength? That it is actually through the exercising of my weaknesses that I develop a true dependence upon the ability of the God rather than the ability of myself? That what God asks of me is not to be good at anything but relying completely on Him?
Recently, I've felt a strong calling to work on things in life and ministry that I am simply not good at doing. I sense a divine urging to pursue ends that require gifts and strengths that I lack. I am not good at following an effort through from beginning to end. I'm not good at building personal relationships past the surface using my own initiative. God is calling me to follow some things through and to build some relationships beyond the surface. The thing is, if I were to answer that call and follow that urging, I would either need to be given gifts that I do not currently posses, or watch God accomplish what I cannot naturally accomplish myself. I am uncomfortable with this. I enjoy doing things I'm good at that come to me without much effort. What I would rather do is play off of my strengths: work to make the environment ripe for me to accomplish things out of my power rather than my weakness. I don't want to deal with the frustration, impatience, and discipline that come with doing things I'm not particularly good at.
Spiritually, this line of reasoning translates that I would rather be dependent upon myself than upon God. Whether I do something because it's easy for me to do or because I'm forcing myself to do it, I'm not depending on God. The only way I can move into obedience is to enter the trenches of faith and have the active trust to rely on God with every step. If I'm called to follow through on some tasks or relationships better, the key is not pressing my will into action - it's meeting the Spirit of empowerment in a way that will allow God's power to be made perfect in my weakness. This looks like prayer. It looks like partnering with people who stretch and teach me to rely on God. It means being willing to humble myself and wait for God to work according to God's own prerogative.
