anyway…more on that story at another time!
but i’ve been thinking about something lately…about how much i hide myself. sure…it was easy to tell you some fun random facts about myself, none of which were too revealing (besides the scandalous fact that the hubs used to be my teacher…but it really wasn’t a scandal at all, sorry to disappoint!)
jake was doing a bible study with a few guys one time, and shared an example of a time that we had gotten in an argument and he had gotten frustrated and lost his temper with me. one of the guys was awestruck, and couldn’t believe that sweet, kind, christian, pastor, Jake would ever lose his temper. at first, when jake told me that story, i laughed out loud…literally. cause the thought of someone not believing that jake has a temper was pretty funny to me! but it got me thinking about all those people that i too think are just a little above the norm….just a little bit more composed and mature and “doing better” than me…and how i compare myself to them…and it made me realize that we live in a very warped world!
here’s what i mean…
don’t we always categorize ourselves and others? aren’t we always just a little above or falling just a little below someone else? we play the comparison game all day long, and either end up feeling pretty darn pleased with ourselves, or totally not good enough (please tell me that i am not the only one that thinks this way at times…) all i have to do is go read a few of my fave blogs to start feeling pretty darn discouraged about myself!
but isn’t there SO MUCH freedom in knowing that we are not alone? that our struggles are shared by other people too? that we aren’t the only strange one, messed up one, frightened one, anxious one, desperate one, sinful one…the list could go on and on. and that we don’t have to strive to be better than someone else, that we don’t have to live in comparison mode all the time….
and yet, we are scared. we’re scared to reveal who we really are…cause we don’t think its safe.
but what if….what if…we lived in a world where we all really believed that the words to that old hymn are true…that “the ground is level at the foot of the cross. we all are equal in the light of the cross.”
what if that were our…MY…perspective as i went about my day?
(then maybe i wouldn’t want to flick off that lady who cut me off at the town center and then mocked me cause i was on my cell phone, trying to tell me that it was my fault! i ended up giving her the thumbs up and a wicked, mouth open kind of sarcastic smile….kinda like this…i guess i know where she gets it:
anyway…have you ever read this book?
the book was wonderful, and life changing, and i had tears streaming down my face as i read it on a flight home a few years ago. i’m sure people thought i was a lunatic. but anyway, the thing that hit me the most about this book, that i can’t seem to get out of my head, even after reading it some time ago, was actually its title…”The Same Kind of Different as Me.”
cause isn’t that really true? aren’t we all just the same kind of different? we are complex beings, i know that. and we are unique, and created purposefully so, and we all have our own story….but aren’t we really all at the core just the same??
the more and more that the Gospel sinks into my heart, the more i totally believe that is 100% (times a billion million) true. we are the same. we are all in need of the same things. we are all desperate for the same things. we all have shared longings, shared screw-ups, shared pain, shared emptiness, shared striving…
it might play itself out differently in our lives, but at the core, the root, its all really the same.
but we hide it, don’t we? aren’t we taught that we have to kinda have it all together? that we have to put on a happy face and get through life? that we can’t reveal who we really are?? that we can’t be, or aren’t as bad as, or need to be better than _________ (fill in the blank.)
wanna know why i think we do that? what the root of the problem is? i think its because at the core, we have a hard time believing that God really loves us….like REALLY loves us, the way He says He does…
isn’t that what happened at the beginning anyway? that was the sneaky snake’s first attack, in the story of Adam and Eve. he hissed at them, made them question God’s love for them…
so then what was it that Adam and Eve did? they sinned…and then they hid. and THEN they made a covering for themselves, cause they realized their nakedness…their shame. and the whole darn time, those hissing words were ringing in their ears, the same hissing words that ring in our’s, “Does God really love you??” that day messed up the whole world. and if i had been Eve, i would’ve done the exact same thing, cause i do it everyday myself. i believe the lie that that darn sneaky snake tells me…that God can’t really love me like He says He does.
and that, friends, is why i hide, why you hide, why we all hide. and why we create coverings for ourselves, “fig leaves”, to make ourselves acceptable again.
but it doesn’t work. it ends up making us feel even more empty, even more detached, from God and from other people.
but guess what? the Gospel tells me that i don’t ever ever have to do that…ever. i don’t ever have to hide. i don’t ever have to doubt that He really does love me…wanna know why??
cause the greatest act of love that ever was, happened for ME. and YOU too. and that’s what makes us the same. that is why there is level ground at the foot of the cross…cause we all need it the same, and receive it the same way:
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”
(John 3:16-17, The Message)
i have a great redeemer who came to conquer sin and the effects of sin once and for all, to make the world right. but He didn’t do it by accusing me, like i accuse myself, or like i think others accuse me. and He didn’t come because i did a good job of hiding my junk. He did it by letting me see how i cover myself, and how my fig leaves aren’t really doing that great of a job, and by showing me that my only hope is to just take the free gift. he did it by demonstrating His love for me:
“but God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
(Romans 5:8)
so this whole hiding game, this comparison game…its a total crock!! and a big ol’ weapon that the enemy…that darn hissing snake…uses to turn my focus off of what’s really true.
and i would venture to say, that its alot more freeing to know that you are not alone in the struggle to believe its true. so instead of acting like we’ve got it all together and figured out, isn’t it so much better to just admit that we don’t, that we try to live behind a dang fig leaf, but that we get to run free cause we’re covered by a Far Greater Covering than we could ever make for ourselves?
Isaiah 61:10 says,
“I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!
For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation
and draped me in a robe of righteousness.”
i would say, those are love letters, love promises, reminders that the way God says He loves me are really very true. and there are many more where they came from…(warning…cheeseball picture up ahead…but i’m a visual person, and in case you are too, i figured i’d go ahead and just take the darn thing and include it…)
so now i can fight off that hissing snake, who tries to tell me that i need to hide and compare myself and doubt. i have a weapon, and its the truth that God really does love me…
and i can live in community with other people, real community, where we are exposed before one another, where we come out of hiding, only because we know and really believe that we are fully loved by God.
well…i just spilled out a whole bunch of thoughts.
chew on it…agree, disagree, relate, think i’m crazy? its all okay….just tell me what you think!
happy weekend!