Christmas makes me say WTF?

CHRISTMAS MAKES ME SAY WTF?!

Several cases in point...

I mean, these photos would make anyone say WTF?!

But what I really mean is that the Christmas story itself evokes that response for me.

GOD'S STORIES AND WTF?!?!

Actually, most of God's stories do. See, in the Bible, it seems like every time God makes someone a promise, the very next event is something COMPLETELY antithetical to whatever he promised. 

• He tells Joseph he's going to be a ruler...
• then Joseph gets thrown into a pit by his own brothers and sold as a slave. 
• He tells Moses he's going to lead his people out of slavery...
• then Pharaoh repeatedly blocks his efforts and sends an army to stop him. 
• He tells David he's going to be the king...
• then David gets chased around the desert by a murderous lunatic for years. 

I could go on and on with examples of times when God takes people in the exact opposite direction of wherever he said they were going to go. 

(Now, eventually all of these people did see the fulfillment of the promises, but it wasn't until they'd encountered multitudes of obstacles that God supernaturally overcame.) It's like he enjoys taking people all the way down to the "all is lost" scene before he finally razzle-dazzles everybody with some crazy breakthrough.

It's encouraging for me to hear those stories because in my life right now, there's something I believe God has promised me...and yet EVERYTHING that's happening seems to contradict that promise.

Seeing all these closed doors makes me think I ought to just give up and write the promise off as a product of my naive and pathetic mind. So to know that the "all is lost" plot device is typical in God's stories helps me hang on to some hope when everything seems hopeless.

CIRCULAR THINKING

But honestly, I'm never able to plant my flag and hold on to that hope steadily, come what may.

Rather, my mind is in a constant cycle of believing-questioning-believing-questioning-believing-questioning, etc. 

• One minute I'll believe God told me something and get all hopeful...
• Only to get slammed by the impossibility of it the very next minute. 
• Then I'll try to revive my hope by reminding myself of all the stuff I think God has said to me over the past 2 years regarding this "promise"...and that will get me hopeful again, thinking that after all God has done so far, SURELY he wouldn't abandon this story now. 
• But then the next setback comes, and I'm catapulted right back to despair and unbelief.

My circular thinking worries me. After all, I've always imagined that after hearing God's promises to them, these Bible characters just remained steadfast and confident, relying on the promise no matter what obstacles stood in their way. 

• I've always imagined that when Joseph got thrown into prison, he sat there and thought, "No worries! I know God will get me out of here and promote me to ruler!" 

• And when David was running for his life, I've always imagined that he was like, "No sweat. I know God's going to put me on the throne before long." 

After all, that's what faith is, right? Being confident of what we hope for?

So that's something that's always DIScouraged me about these stories...because I don't have that kind of steadfast confidence about the promise I think God made to me. I'm much more up & down and back & forth and every which way, depending on the weather. 

Ask me today: 
"God gave me a sign! I believe it!!!" 

Ask me tomorrow: 
"WTF??? This is impossible. It must have all been in my imagination." 

I change my mind like a girl changes clothes. So does my Katy Perry-ness indicate that my promise was never real? Does my lack of confidence and my need to convince myself over and over again prove that I made the whole thing up in the first place? 

And if the promise IS imaginary...is God getting really annoyed that I keep turning it over and over in my mind? Is he tapping his fingers and wondering when I'm going to get over this obsession and move on to something REAL?

MARY WAS A CIRCULAR THINKER

Well, I guess I won't know definitively if the promise was real until I reach the end of my story. 

But as I was reading the Christmas story this year, I realized that maybe not all the Bible characters were as sure about the things God promised them as I've always assumed. The line in the Christmas story that got me thinking was this one:

...but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Put in context, the verse actually says that everybody around believed that this baby was the Messiah...BUT Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

• It doesn't say: "Everybody believed that this baby was the Messiah and so did Mary!"

• Rather, it says: "Everybody believed it...BUT Mary was still weighing all the evidence." 

And that leads me to believe Mary wasn't feeling a whole lot of resolute confidence at that moment. (And that's not the only moment, either! Luke records TWO separate times that Mary had to treasure and ponder things in her heart. - 2:19 & 2:51)

When I read about the treasuring and pondering, I suddenly thought, "I get it, Mary!!!" 

I totally get this need to treasure things up and ponder them in your heart. Isn't that what I'm doing when I repeatedly refer to my backlog of evidence and try to determine whether it's all real or imaginary? I'm treasuring up all the things I've seen God do, and I'm pondering them in my heart to determine what they mean:

Are these instances of God speaking to me??? Or can the whole thing be summed up with a big "WTF"???

I guess what I'd always pictured was Mary hearing from the angel and then serenely going forward with no more doubts: "I don't care what you say; my baby is the Son of God!!! No matter what happens, I know I'm playing an integral role in the story of how God's saving the entire human race!"

But I'm starting to think that wasn't the way it went at all. 

• After all, if she'd gone forward with no more doubts - serenely confident that the baby that popped up into her womb out of NOWHERE was the long-awaited Messiah - then why did she need to treasure up her evidence and ponder it in her heart? 

• If she'd been completely confident that this impossible and scandalous pregnancy was God's plan for her, then why did she need to hurry off to her relative Elizabeth's house to ponder over things with her? 

• If she'd been completely steadfast in her knowledge that her kid was the Son of God, then why was she so confused and needing to ponder things several years later when that Son of God was found hanging out in his Father's house?

I'm really starting to think it's because Mary wasn't steadfastly confident at all. What if she was more of a circular thinker like me:

Someone who believed she'd received a promise...
and someone who saw God do amazing things to confirm it...
but then someone who lost her confidence when she encountered opposition...

Someone who often wondered about the validity of the promise and needed to repeatedly go back over the backlog of evidence and re-evaluate everything she'd seen so far?

(I mean, we might like to think that if an angel appeared to us and delivered a message, that we'd believe it - no questions asked. But I really doubt that. We tend to explain away the supernatural. Case in point: Last week I saw my best friend's injured knee get miraculously healed after we laid hands on it and prayed for her. But instead of believing God answered our prayers, my first instinct was to dismiss it as a figment of my friend's imagination. Geez Louise...what does God have to do to convince me?! If I'm that quick to disbelieve a miracle, I doubt I'd be any different with an angel.)

MARY'S "SIGN VS. WTF?!" THOUGHT PROCESS

Anyway, I'm starting to think Mary's thought process went a whole lot less like: 

PROMISE: Mary, you're going to give birth to the Messiah!!!
RESPONSE: I believe it! It doesn't matter what happens; I know my son is the savior of the world!

And a whole lot more like:

PROMISE: 
Mary, you're going to give birth to the Messiah!!!!

RESPONSE:

• And you're going to get pregnant without having sex..........WTF??? 
• The angel reminds her God can do anything..........Sign!
• Joseph's going to divorce her..........WTF???
• Elizabeth has a similar impossible pregnancy story..........Sign! 
• Joseph stays with her after all..........Sign!

• No room in the inn..........WTF???
• First people to greet the Messiah were...lowly shepherds??? .........WTF??? Mary needs to treasure up and ponder her evidence.
• Wise men come and bring gifts..........Sign!
• Simeon blesses the baby..........Sign!
• Angel tells them to flee to Egypt to save the baby's life..........Sign & WTF??? (all mixed together)
• Angel tells them it's safe to return to Nazareth..........Sign!

• 12 years of nothing - just raising a normal kid..........WTF???
• Losing him in Jerusalem..........WTF???
• Jesus says God's his Dad..........Sign! Mary needs to treasure up and ponder her evidence again.
• 18 more years of nothing...........WTF???
• Jesus is baptized and the Spirit comes down...........Sign!
• Jesus is tempted in the wilderness..........WTF???

• Jesus is praised in Nazareth..........Sign!
• People of Nazareth try to throw him off a cliff..........WTF???
• Jesus says he won't do a miracle at the wedding..........WTF???
• Jesus does turn water into wine after all..........Sign! 

(And now I'm understanding why this poor woman needed some wine!!!)

• Jesus heals, casts out demons, preaches..........Sign!
• Jesus is crucified..........WTF???
• Jesus comes back to life..........Sign!

                

WHY I LIKE THIS

And that's actually really encouraging to me. 

• It's encouraging to think that God would choose someone who didn't stand perfectly confident in her faith. 
• It's encouraging to think that God would CONTINUE to write a story involving someone who was repeatedly questioning and doubting. 
• It's encouraging to think that the fulfillment of the promise wasn't dependent on the steadfastness of her faith. 
• It's encouraging to think that I'm ALLOWED to treasure up evidence and ponder it when I'm clueless...that this doesn't make me any less faithful.

In fact, as I've treasured all this up and pondered it in my heart, I've started thinking a couple of things:

1. Bible stories are summaries: I bet a whole lot more of the Bible characters experienced that type of circular thinking as well; it's just that we don't know it because we only get summarized stories in the Bible; we don't get the journal entries detailing everyone's thoughts and feelings. (After all, for the ones where we DO get some insight into their thought processes, we find that they're pretty flaky, too. Look at all the psalms where David cries out and asks God what in the world is going on. Look at Moses when he tries to back out of the promise and get God to choose someone else. Sounds pretty much like Mary and me.)
2. Bible characters aren't perfect: Secondly, I think there actually IS a lot of flakiness recorded in these stories...it's just that we tend to ignore/explain it away because we expect these Bible guys to be perfect heroes. We don't expect them to be clueless chumps like us who just happened to get chosen to participate in the story God was writing. 

WHAT IS FAITH?

All that to say...none of this actually helps me to determine if the thing God promised me is real or not. Darnit.

But maybe that's not the point.

Here's what I mean: 

I don't know whether the promise is real. But I DO know that all this "treasuring up and pondering" of the things God has done has certainly focused my mind on him more than ever before!

So I have to believe that even if my promise is a figment of my imagination, God can't be opposed to my treasuring and pondering. He can't be opposed to anything that focuses my mind on him. 

So maybe developing unshakeable and resolute faith isn't the point. 

Maybe determining with 100% certainty whether the promise was real isn't the point.

Maybe the point is to treasure and ponder until I grow so close to my Dad that I can say, "Whether or not this promise is real, I trust you and I know that you are for me."

Maybe faith isn't about unwavering absoluteness; maybe it's more the way Anne Lamott describes it: 

"...the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns."

Maybe faith is more like saying something like Mary: 

"God, I THINK this is what you're promising me. But honestly, I could be wrong. What I do know is that YOU'RE not wrong. So whatever you HAVE said about me...let it come true."

At least, that's where I am on this issue right now. 

So if you catch me with a far-off look in my eye, just figure I'm treasuring/pondering...and feel free to chime in with a well-timed WTF?!

"Nothing, you see, is impossible with God.” 

And Mary said,"Yes, I see it all now:    I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve.Let it be with me    just as you say." 

--Luke 1:37-38

Yes, you can have a mid-life crisis at 27.

Lately people have said how "brave" I am to share my struggles. But I don't see myself as brave. "Brave" implies that one sees danger and chooses to do something anyway. In my case, I just don't see any danger in the first place! So I don't think that counts as brave. (Maybe stupid...but that's a different story...) 

In any case, I thought it might be worthwhile to tell the story of how I got to this point of being willing to air my dirty laundry. So here is the story of my mid-life crisis...

MY OLD PARADIGM

Once upon a time, I was the perfectionist oldest child in a middle class Christian family. I decided at age 4 to follow Jesus, and like everything I did, I jumped in wholeheartedly. I read the Bible, I prayed, I obeyed him, I went to church activities...and the motivation behind all of this was my overwhelming desire to know this mysterious God who created me. Everything I knew about him seemed beautiful, and I wanted to get closer.

What I THOUGHT I learned was this: 

The way to get closer to God - the golden ticket into his presence - is to "have it all together."

 

I thought the people who really knew God were the ones who were responsible, who made good decisions, who obeyed the rules, who had self-discipline, who never let anything get to them...who basically had life figured out. And this was good news for me...because, like I said, I was a driven overachiever! I'm generally a person who DOES keep it all together, so I thought I was on the right track. 

This is not to say I didn't have a lot of ups and downs with God...after all, I'm a perfectionist. So in a relationship with God based mostly on what I could do for him, I constantly worried that I wasn't doing enough. I was constantly thinking of ways to make up for the areas where I fell short. 

But overall, in comparison to the other slackers out there, I thought of myself as an elite Christian - someone who was destined to do great things for God; someone he was proud to call a daughter; someone who would surely grow up to be the paragon "have it all together" Christian (married with 2.5 kids); someone who should be leading others and encouraging them to get their lives together, too.

QUESTIONS

But a couple of questions nagged at me and threatened to tear down my self-assigned high ranking with God. 

Question 1: The first came in college when this guy Eric told his story about how he'd been a drug dealer and a thief...but how God turned his life around. It was such an inspiring story about the transformative power of God's love...but it made me sad, because I realized that I already HAD my life all together. So there wasn't anything I really needed from God. I lamented that I'd never have an inspiring testimony like Eric's to share with people. But worse, I started to wonder...if I didn't really NEED anything from God...was I missing out on some big way of connecting with him?

Question 2: The second came soon after college when my dad asked this question at our church: "If God were removed from your life, what would change?" When I really stopped to think, I was crushed to admit that in reality, NOTHING would change if God were removed from my life. That's because I'm just generally a responsible, rule-following, "got it all together" kind of person. So though I liked to THINK I was doing that for God's sake, the truth is that I'd still be that way even if he wasn't around. And that bothered me A LOT, because I just kept thinking...this God I believe in is powerful and all-consuming and transforming. So what am I missing that I'm not experiencing that in my life?

Question 3: The third came one night as I was lying in bed, fretting about why I couldn't get anywhere in my endeavor to do "great things for God." I soooo wanted to lead some initiative to change the world for God, but I couldn't get ANYWHERE, no matter what I did. And suddenly it occurred to me..."Here I think of myself as this great Christian who is totally different from the world...but the fact is that I'm exactly the same schemer/striver/power-hungry manipulator as everyone else is...it's just that I do it in a church setting instead of a secular setting." And that rocked me. Shouldn't someone who's close to God have an entirely different motivational structure?

So these questions nagged at the back of my mind for years, but since my efforts to "have it all together" were generally working for me, I didn't really consider making any big changes. 

PROBLEMS

But soon my record of success began to waver...mainly related to the fact that I was 27 years old and nowhere NEAR the stage of life I thought I should be. I had no husband, no kids, no house with a white picket fence. I had a thankless job as a teacher where I was working myself to death and getting no credit. I had very few friends. I had no "great things for God" to brag about. Basically, I didn't "have it together" the way I thought I should. This led to 3 major problems: 

Problem 1: I was totally depressed and dissatisfied because I hadn't achieved the life stage I'd expected for age 27.

Problem 2: Worse was the fact that I couldn't figure out HOW to get to the stage where I was supposed to be...no matter how much I schemed!!!

Problem 3: But here's the real kicker...I started worrying that even if I DID achieve the stage where I thought I should be, I wouldn't be satisfied. I mean, I get a thrill out of the "getting there" part of goal-setting, but the actual "arrival" is usually a letdown. And if that's all I had to look forward to in life - an arrival and then a huge letdown - well, that's really scary. I began to feel hopeless about life in general.

I started telling God that if he had more to offer than this dead-end, stress-filled life, then I wanted it. 

THE CRASH

And that's when my "got it all together" life started crashing all around me...

Friends: The first chink in my armor occurred when my best (and only) friend started dating her now husband. I felt demoted...like she'd only wanted me around as a consolation prize until she found the REAL person she wanted to spend her time with. And now there was no one in the world choosing to spend time with me. I felt completely rejected...as if I wasn't WORTHY of being chosen. I didn't know how else to retain my "dignity" other than to reject her before she could completely reject me. So I did. But I hated myself for it. And I was left with no one.

Getting married: According to the life plan I'd developed, I was YEARS behind in the marriage department. But no matter what I did, I couldn't get a single man to notice that I even existed. I was invisible...and it really made me question if I was even WORTHY of being pursued. Maybe I WAS a nobody...and maybe I didn't deserve to have anyone love me! But good Christians are married with 2.5 kids!!!! I didn't know how to get there!!! 

Moral character: That's why, when "Tom" came along and noticed that I existed, I HAD to jump at that chance...even though I knew he wasn't husband material. But to hold onto him, I had to do things "good" Christians don't do. I hated what I was doing, but I couldn't stop myself because I didn't know how to find validation if it wasn't from him.

Job: At the same time, I was completely burning out in my job as a teacher. I worked 16 hour days...and even when I wasn't working, my brain NEVER rested as I tried to be the most perfect teacher who ever lived. Yet despite all my efforts, kids still didn't care and parents still blamed me for problems. I can't describe the frustration of doing EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to be perfect...but knowing it still wasn't enough. I knew I'd never last 30 years at this pace, but being a good teacher was the foundation of my identity!!! After all, I wasn't getting my identity from being loved by a person. This was my only validation. So I couldn't quit...but I couldn't keep going.  

Independence: Eventually, though, I reached the breaking point. For years I'd thought God was calling me to quit my career as a teacher, but I'd been fighting him. Now I was so depressed that I was ready to do ANYTHING to enact a change. But when I quit teaching, I couldn't find anything else to do. I'd expected God to call me into some grand new career...but instead I ended up moving back in with my parents at age 30 and working at Charlotte Russe...definitely not the success you'd expect from a 4.0 honors student who's supposed to "have her life together."

Doing great things for God: I was also receiving constant negative evaluation in the volunteer position I held at church. This was quite confusing for the girl who'd always gotten 100% on every assignment, and I started to wonder if I was even capable of doing "great things for God" as I'd always dreamed. Not only that, but because my life was falling apart, I wondered if I was even the kind of person he'd WANT to represent him. I'd often been looked down on by other people, but this was the first time I'd ever felt deserving of being looked down on by my creator. And without a thumbs up from him, I felt completely worthless. 

Car: In a physical manifestation of the way everything was crashing emotionally, I spun my car into a wall and totaled it...with my best friend in the passenger seat. To this day, I can't tell you what caused that wreck, other than a little rain on the ground. But responsible people keep control of their cars and don't risk innocent people's lives!!! At that point, I questioned my ability to control ANYTHING in my life. 

Identity: This life crash really made me question: "Who am I anymore???" After all, I'd thought of myself as someone who had a good head on her shoulders; someone who made good decisions; someone who had it all together. But clearly that was no longer the case! If my identity was not "Good Friend" or "Good Teacher" or "Good Christian" or even "Good Driver"...then who WAS I? 

Mental stability: My grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and as I watched her lose sanity in a way she couldn't control, I panicked that this would happen to me. If I completely lost my ability to "have it all together"...would that mean I was no longer worthy of respect? Was SHE no longer worthy of respect? This caused me to question the way I evaluated everyone and everything...and my disillusionment led me to do something I'd SWORN I'd never do...I started seeing a counselor. But people who have it all together don't need to see a counselor!!! I was embarrassed and I kept it a secret even from my family, because I was afraid of what they'd think of me.

THE NEED

My lowest point was Easter Sunday 2008 when I realized that FAR from being the respected "have it all together" Christian I'd aspired to be, I was basically a Jerry Springer guest. I was entangled in a bitter "love" triangle with Tom, complete with public drama. I had no friends, no job, no home of my own, no reason for anyone to respect me - including myself. I was a complete failure at life. I did not have it all together, and therefore, according to my own belief system, I had no basis to come close to God.

No words can adequately describe the severity of the hopelessness and loss of identity that I experienced during this time. 

I felt like a little girl who'd been skipping merrily and naively to school with a smile and big dreams...but on the way, bullies started jumping out of the bushes one by one...ganging up on me, beating me up and yelling at me ruthlessly:

"Who do you think you are??? You're worthless to God and to everyone else!!! You're not worthy of respect; you're just worthy of disdain! What in the world EVER made you think you could do great things for God? You can't even hold a normal life together! Why would you ever think God could be pleased with you? You're just a disappointment to him! Maybe he "loves" you, but he doesn't LIKE you. In fact, nobody likes you...and do you know why? Because you're unlikable! You're a pain to God and to everybody else. He just rolls his eyes at you. The best thing you can do for God and for the world is just stay out of everyone's way and lie here in this little ball getting beat up like you deserve." 

These kinds of thoughts screamed at me on a minute-by-minute basis. It was nearly unbearable. At first I tried to fight the bullies off, but as the gang grew stronger and I grew weaker, I had no choice but to give in to what they said. 

Suddenly I NEEDED God like I never had before. I NEEDED someone to defend me from the horrible accusations that were being thrown against me! I was desperate. No longer did I spend time with God out of duty; now I sought after him VORACIOUSLY. No longer did I pray during a set period of time; now I prayed in the back of my mind ALL THE TIME, asking for help as I did whatever else I was doing. I was so hungry for truth that I skipped meals and got up early to read the Bible...searching for something - ANYTHING - to get me out of this mess. 

It felt like my eyes had suddenly been opened to this war that was happening around me. I started thinking maybe being a Christian wasn't about "having it all together," but was actually about this giant battle in which both God and his Enemy were fighting tooth-and-nail for my soul. I certainly felt caught in the tug of war! And at that point, I really wasn't sure who was going to win.

Simultaneous to crying out desperately to God for help, though, I was also so angry at him. After all, I'd spent my entire life trying to serve him!!! Why wasn't he rewarding me with a "have it all together" life like he should??? But the more I'd follow that train of thought, the more I'd realize I clearly didn't DESERVE any kind of reward! After all, what kind of good Christian gets herself into such a sad state? So then I'd end up angry at myself!

NEW QUESTIONS

Everything I'd believed about life, about God, and about myself was turned on its head. Now I had new questions, and I was determined to get answers:

• Why is this happening to me? Is this a punishment...or is this actually a rescue from all the lies I'd believed about life and from all the demands to which I'd enslaved myself?
• What is success? Does being successful mean "having it all together"...or is it possible for me to be a success in God's eyes even right now while I'm a mess?
• Am I still worthy of respect? After all, underneath the mess, I'm the same person I've always been...it's only my circumstances that have changed; not the core of me. So what makes a person worthy of respect?
• Am I worthy of being pursued and chosen and loved...even if I don't have it all together? If so, why? 
• What makes God pleased with a person? Is he rolling his eyes at me behind my back, or could he possibly delight in me right now? If he doesn't, how can I get him to delight in me?

I began posing these questions to people I encountered, and usually they confirmed my worst fears...that I WAS a disappointment to God and that he'd let me endure this punishment until I got my life together and did something that would make me worthy of entering his presence. 

And though their answers made sense, deep down I didn't believe them. Deep down I believed that my Dad still loved me, that he was still proud of me, that he still looked forward to seeing me, that he still showed people my picture and said, "That's my girl!" I didn't know HOW that could possibly be true; I just knew that I felt his presence and love more strongly in my life now than I EVER had before when I'd "had it all together."

I was so embarrassed and depressed about where I was in life, and I had no strength to get my life back on track. He was my only hope. I remember saying to God, "If you get me out of this, I'll spend the rest of my life telling anyone and everyone about what you've done for me."

NEW WAYS OF CONNECTING TO GOD

This mid-life crisis went on for 3 years. I wondered if I'd come out alive. But in the midst of it, I had two encounters with God that gave me strength to keep going.

Prisoner of War

One night I was praying with my parents, asking God to show himself to me. 

As we prayed, I pictured myself as a prisoner of war. I was trapped in this dark, musty, rat-infested dungeon...chained to the wall, beaten to a pulp, forgotten by everyone. There were guards stationed all around the prison, wielding AK-47s and determined not to let any prisoners escape. I was practically comatose with no hope of getting free. But as I sat there, the ground started shaking beneath me. It woke me up, and I panicked because I thought an earthquake was going to destroy the building! I imagined the walls of my prison becoming my eternal grave. I cried out for help, even though I knew no one heard me or cared. In fact, I didn't even WANT anyone to come after me, because I knew they'd be risking their life to get to me...and I didn't think I was worth it. My situation was hopeless. But as the rumbling grew louder and the walls began crumbling, I realized that this was not an earthquake at all...this was my own army storming the prison to rescue me! A glimmer of hope stirred in me, and suddenly I got a glimpse of Jesus, wearing camouflage, running toward me in a full-out sprint to rip off my chains, throw me over his shoulder, and whisk me off to safety. As we ran out of the prison and blitzed through the shower of bullets, he held me in his arms and shielded me. I thought for sure we wouldn't make it out alive, but when we got to safety, I found that I was unharmed...but he was bleeding from all the gunfire he'd taken for me. I couldn't understand why anyone would go through all of that just to rescue a worthless P.O.S. like me!!! But all I kept thinking was, "He came to get me! He really loves me!"

At first I dismissed this scenario as a product of my overactive imagination. But the more I pondered it, the more I believed this was a true picture of what was happening spiritually. I'd been so enslaved to all my performance-driven ways of building identity. They'd held me prisoner and beaten me to a pulp...and unlike what I'd assumed, Jesus wasn't sitting on his throne waiting for me to get it together and present myself faultless before him; rather, he was throwing off his royal robes, donning his camo, and storming the prison I'd made for myself in order to get to me! This was NOT the picture of Christianity I'd ever had before.

I hung on to that picture through the darkest of times, but things didn't start turning around until my next encounter...

Tallahassee

One morning as I drove to work, I was lamenting to God about my inability to get it together and obey him. I'd read John 14:15, which says, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." The fact of the matter was that I was NOT keeping his commandments. I wasn't loving my friend the way I was supposed to; I wasn't approaching my job the way I was supposed to; I wasn't acting morally the way I was supposed to. I'd spent so many months trying to re-interpret this verse; trying to justify myself and explain how I actually DID love him, even though I wasn't keeping his commandments...when suddenly it occurred to me that morning...maybe this verse is RIGHT. Maybe I didn't love him after all.

Wow. This realization was so humbling that I finally surrendered and said, "Okay, God, you're right. I DON'T love you. What's worse is that I CAN'T love you. No matter how hard I try, I can't make myself do what you say. And even worse than that, I don't know if I even WANT to love you...because I'm fairly certain that following your commandments will lead to the death of my identity. I wish I wanted to love you, but I don't. So what hope is there for me?" I was devastated, and I started crying as I realized that contrary to what I'd thought my whole life, I had absolutely no ability to make myself worthy of God's love.

But as I drove hopelessly down Tallahassee Dr., this thought came into my mind clear as day: "Jill, you've had it all wrong. You thought it was all about you loving me, you getting to me, and you doing things for me. But that's backwards. It's really all about me loving you, and me getting to you, and me doing things for you."

Okay, this thought TOTALLY ROCKED me. It completely shattered my old paradigm of what it meant to connect with God, and yet I knew it had to be from him.

This was a huge turning point in my life. I can't say that I totally believed it, and I definitely can't say that I knew what it meant, but what I DID know was this: God had not given up on me...and he wasn't going to. 

God had seen me at my very worst...without even a DESIRE to "get it together"...and yet he'd still accepted me. More than that, he'd actually come running after me himself! The question of whether I was worthy of being pursued was answered for me with amazing clarity and finality. My creator didn't just love me...he LOOOOOOOOOVED me.

A NEW PARADIGM

That's when things finally started to turn around for me...when I realized that God puts his stamp of approval on me RIGHT NOW...completely regardless of my track record. What a relief from all the pressure I'd put on myself to perform and to "have it all together"!!!

Ain't no way I'd post a pic of ME without makeup. ;)

It was totally life-changing to realize that I'm loved and desired by a God who sees me without my "makeup" on...and still wants me. That's when I entered a process of God saving me that continues to this day, and that will continue for the rest of my life.

But it didn't make sense to me that I connected with God...NOT when I had it all together, but when I finally humbled myself and admitted that I was a hopeless mess in need of saving.

I knew it was TRUE...but it was counterintuitive. How could a holy God who "has it all together" look at a mess like me and accept me? I felt like everything in life hinged on my ability to answer this question, so I set out on a determined quest to understand.

This quest lasted several years, and though I've concluded I'll NEVER fully comprehend it, here's what I believe:

• I SHOULD have to "get it all together" in order to stand before a perfect God. I was right about that!
• But what I HADN'T understood was the hopelessness of this situation...because the truth is that no matter how hard I try, I never will measure up to God's standards...because what God wants from me more than just rote obedience is a heart that loves him so much I'd do ANYTHING for him. And that's not something I can conjure up. (Believe me, I've tried.) 
• So my condition is much more severe than I'd ever realized. Because I don't measure up, I deserve to be rejected by God...and I deserve all those horrible accusations the bullies were shouting at me. I deserve to be cast aside in the dark, musty dungeon...and there's nothing I can do about it. 
• But EVEN IN THAT STATE, God loves me so much that he does something about it. He doesn't wait for me to fix myself and live up to standards...because that will never happen. In fact, there's only one person who has EVER lived up to standards (and that's not me; it's Jesus). 
• So what God does is he sends his perfect, beloved, standard-meeting son to take on my identity...to switch places with me so that I can have his perfect identity. 
  • On the cross, Jesus takes my place getting beat up by the bullies' accusations...he takes the place I deserve. He's rejected by God and left to die in the dark, musty dungeon.
  • And I get to take on Jesus' identity! That means when God looks at me, he sees Jesus' track record...and therefore he says, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You are my son in whom I'm well pleased!" God sees me as someone who "has it all together" because the transcript attached to my name is Jesus' transcript (as long as I approve the exchange)!

Okay, that is GOOD NEWS...and that is life-changing.

I can't claim to have plumbed all the depths of this amazing truth...and I don't think I ever will!!! But what I can say is this:

• I no longer claim to have it all together...because I don't. And to tell the truth, I'm GLAD I don't, because that reputation comes with a lot of pressure. 
• I like being loved by a God who sees me without my "makeup" on. And that's why I don't care about revealing my messiness to the world. If the perfect and holy God of the universe accepts me just as I am, then who are you to say any differently?!?!
• The fact that God accepts me when I'm a mess does not make me want to stay a mess. Rather, it makes me want to do everything I can to look more like this beautiful Dad of mine who loves without limits.

So...here's where I am: I know that I still fall short of his perfect standard...EVERY SINGLE DAY. (I'm fully aware and regret that some of you have been the victim of this.)

But I also know that I am completely known and loved by a God who's so good he would give up his own life so I could have one. How could I NOT share this with everyone I know? That's not brave; that's just reality. 

And that's why I want you to know I'm a mess...because it just shows off how wonderful my Dad is. And that's all that matters.

You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. --Matt 5:3