Something Beautiful is happening to me.
It’s my season to finally, finally blossom. I just know it. Everything is rearranging. my perspective. my very identity. My identity is not in my education. Or my career. Or who likes me or doesn’t like me. Or in the things I have and like. Or in a boy’s love. It’s not even in what I do at all. My emotions are not who I am. What I do is not who I am. That changes everything! Without all these things hanging on me, it suddenly becomes surprisingly probable that the person hidden beneath the sin and emotions and works could very possibly be exactly who He says I am. All those crazy things He calls me that, deep down, I never really believed–a daughter of a king, loved, never forsaken, righteous, holy, a saint–suddenly becomes…possible.
All this time, God has had His hand on me. He’s heard my every prayer throughout these years, even when I didn’t think He was hearing me at all, even when I thought He was mad at me for always messing up. All I knew to do was to tryhardertryharder maybemaybemaybe anditnever worked. Just like every other Christian who keeps running around in circles and never actually has that peace and joy that the Bible claims they’re supposed to have. I could understand why other people didn’t want to become Christians. Many Christians are miserable. And many pretend like they’re not, thinking that everyone else is on the happy God train but them, when in fact most of them are the same way. It’s miserable trying to live up to the impossibly perfect, holy standards of a holy God. …But God knows that. He’s God. He knows that the bar has to be high in order for us to know Him. Because we cannot come to the conclusion that we need Him until we’ve tried and tried and tried to reach perfection and failed. We can’t come to Him unless we truly believe we need Him. for everything. it’s miserable to see Him as just a big sugar daddy in the sky that hands out blessings. it’s miserable to only try to be a christian in order to pray a magic prayer every so often so you’ll feel better about yourself but never really change. we have to come to the end of ourselves. we. have. to need. Him. before. we. can. know. Him.
I knew there had to be more to it than all these little reasons for religion that aren’t all that different from anyone else’s religion. We’re not supposed to live with such brokenhearted lives. And that’s it–that’s the point, the gospel, the GOOD NEWS is that WE DON’T HAVE TO LIVE THAT WAY. Trying and trying to jump over a bar that is impossibly high in order for a sinful human to know a holy God is what JESUS FIXED 2000 years ago. We don’t have to keep running and asking for God to forgive us every time we sin in order to “activate” God’s forgiveness on a daily basis. HE ALREADY HAS. IT. IS. FINISHED. That IS the Good News. That is the foundation of Christianity! And yet–look at the church–so many Christians feel so hopeless in their view of God.
Why are people not shouting this from the rooftops?
It really is just as simple as believing. Believe that God loves you. Really believe it. That in itself is hard. Believe that what you do or do not do does not change that. And understand, really, really understand the cross and resurrection. Through His death, the sins of all humanity throughout all the span of time are forgiven. Through His resurrection, we are alive in Him. We share in His identity. I’ve always been taught that you have to “give up everything” for God if you’re really serious about Him, but ahhh who wants that anyway? That’s not it at all, it’s a beautiful, beautiful paradox, when you let go, when you lose yourself in Him, it’s like you’re losing your old worn out fake self. And you realize that wasn’t your real self at all. You find your real identity anew in HIM.
I know this is a babbly post, and I might not be making much sense to some readers. But, to sum up, I am beginning to actually understand what it really means to be a “Christian”. It is all Love. And simple childlike belief. My, it’s only been a month since I wrote on this blog that I wanted to fall in love with my Creator, and it is really happening. Now that I am beginning to understand the cross and resurrection, now that it’s really sinking in that He loves me, I am beginning to love Him back. And it feels. so. good.
