“Remember humbly admitting to God who you really were? Right about then you met Jesus.” “God can’t help us until we trust Him with who we really are.”
~True Faced by Thrall, McNicol & Lynch
I sat across the dinner table from some very dear friends this weekend catching up on their lives and catching them up on mine. It was a tender time….
We discussed so many things…ourselves, our children, work, church, common friends, life in general.
My friends have had pain in their lives…along with great joy. They have felt acceptance and they have felt rejection. They have felt loved and they have felt mis-understood. They have felt the tender compassion of friendship and they have felt the strong whip of judgment.
And, all of this had changed them.
They were different.
Tender.
I am told that the eyes are the window to the soul of a person. My friends eyes were rich in love, compassion, hurt, and forgiveness…
Their hands, which lay on my dining table were the hands of mighty warriors battling humble.
Their words were soft and gentle.
Life had dealt them blows.
Life had broken their hearts.
As the wife said, “My Tigger was dead” (as in Winnie the Pooh)
But life had not won.
Their eyes lit up as they leaned into one another and committed….
When we gave over our full selves to God and let Him be our rudder, our lives became valuable.
When we looked at ourselves long in the mirror…really looked..
Through tear-filled eyes
And admitted to God who we really were…
We became healed.
Whole.
Forgiven.
When we said to God…”here I am…just as I am…lowly that I am…broken that I am…sinner that I am…
When we trusted God…our maker and creator…with our REAL selves…
When we gave over to God our ugly selves
When we stopped the pretense of having it all together and admitted we had nothing together
When we revealed our broken places to ourselves
And our families
And our church
THAT is when we met Jesus.
And, that is when we started living.
Now, these are people who I have always felt were real and authentic. These are people who were pretty quick to share their broken places. I never sensed any pretense or farce in their lives.
These are two precious souls who had some tough things thrown at them in life and readily shared.
These are a brother and sister who had called upon their friends to pray.
They were noble warriors…ones who shared their battles and knew God was required in their lives or their lives would not be livable.
So, to hear them say that through all of that they had not fully admitted who they really were and given themselves over to God was pretty humbling.
How does one go about doing that?
How do you know when you have done so?
I asked.
And, he said
“it is a journey you work on every day, but, you know you are on the right path when you refuse to look at the lives of others in judgment and focus instead of God’s plan for your own life.”
“when you are able to love others without condemnation”
“when you are able to understand that God is working on those around you just as He is working on you and in that, you should just love.”
“Lesa….God just calls us to love one another”
Which, after many years of soul searching,
I have come to accept as well.
Do we turn our heads away from the sins of life? No
I don’t think so.
I personally think that there is a place and time for friends, churches, brothers and sisters to lovingly and pointedly turn others to the Word for direction.
I have done that in my 49 years. I have received that in my 49 years.
But, ultimately, at the end of the day, even that is to be done with love and compassion and stout standing for God’s Word.
We discussed the lineage of Jesus, the friendships of Jesus, the brothers and sisters of Jesus..
Saying that they were an imperfect lot would be an understatement. Every commandment, every law and every rule for life has been broken by those whom Jesus loves.
Is that “okay” with Him? No
I heard at church this past Sunday a teacher declare..
God weeps in anguish for our sinfulness. In Jeremiah, God describes the great lengths He will go to to punish the rebellious of heart…”uprooting them from their lands.”
He pulls them away from all which is familiar and tears them from the ground of their sinfulness…and, He allows them to suffer for their misdeeds…
But, He then says,
“But after I uproot them, I will again have compassion and will bring each of them their own inheritance and their own country. And, if they learn well the ways of “my” people and swear by my name saying, “as surely as the Lord lives”, even as they once taught my people to swear by Baal – THEN they will be established among my people.”
He had compassion…a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
And, gratefully, HE has the ability to alleviate it.
So, my friends and I discussed this thought..
What if….
What if rather than keeping our distance from those who sin…which is all of us…what if we just had compassion and love for them and let God do the judging?
God knows the whole story of a person’s life. He knows the truths and the lies. He knows the sin and the repentance.
So, What if….
What if we let HIM handle the “stuff” and we just loved?
All of us at my table agreed…that would free each of us up to be REAL…and, how much simpler would life be if we could be real with one another?
How freeing would it be not to just “mouth” the words but to actually live them?
Would life’s messiness be exposed? Oh yes
Would it make us uncomfortable? Yes, yes
Would it be painful to watch, to experience? Yes again
But, what if, by doing so, we were able to become real…living in our skin right for all to see?
Could it be lovely? Yes
Could it be marvelous? Yes
Could it be freeing? Yes
Would it be Godly? I think so
Do we have to drown one another with our folly? No. That would take us away from God’s work in our lives. But, I do think, when those opportunities arise to be compassionate with one another to the point of allowing and encouraging “real-ness”, that we should give ourselves to that.
And, in doing so, believe we will become the Real selves God intended us to be.
And, in the so doing, met Jesus….like I did at my dinner table with my beloved friends.
Blessings,
Lesa
Why does God step out from behind veils and make His face blindingly known?
Because He loves us so…
(excerpted from A Holy Experience 1/9/12)
