As I sit and await our newest Turner's entry into the world, much floods my mind. To be honest, right now, it is my failures. My many failures. My fears. My hopes. The gaps between what I want to be and what I am. Yet while those failures surface and seek to cause me to despair, a pivotal conversation I had this summer with a friend in the parking lot comes to mind washing my mind with truth and therefore hope.
I told this friend ashamedly how I love tasks way too much and many a times choose tasks over people. They are comfortable. They don't talk back. I can check them off my list. I spoke honestly and freely because she is that kind of friend. I told her I thought I should be so much further in this journey of life than I am. I knew that I never would arrive this side of heaven, but shouldn't I have come a little farther than I am? Shouldn't I be better at friendship and choosing people over tasks. Shouldn't I know how to ask the right questions? Shouldn't I delight over being on the floor with my kiddos much of the time? Shouldn't people feel like delight more of the time than not since I was created for relationship?
She listened and said something to the extent of sometimes we "get it right" 80% of the time and sometimes 20% of the time. It is all grace. This is the very thing that will cause you time and time again to run to Jesus. She then sent me a book in the mail called Extravagant Grace. It is excellent.
Since that conversation this summer, I am beginning to realize that my many failures are actually an opportunity for gratitude. Yes, gratitude because Christ's righteousness was given to me fully and completely, which means that God actually sees me as perfect at relationships because of Jesus. This truth is actually giving me freedom to relax about my inability to change myself. It is making me desire to obey even more and ask the Lord to bring growth in this area of my life. It is also causing me to give thanks because I see how my desire to fully embrace inconvenience and the mess of relationships is growing millimeter by millimeter. I am aware of my struggle whereas in the past I was completely oblivious to it. Hatred is growing toward my sin. I love that Paul grants freedom through his words in Romans 7 to be alarmingly honest about our weakness because we can be radically confident of God's love for us. Sanctification as historically articulated is 'the work of God's free grace, where He renews us in the image of God, and enables us to more and more die to sin, and live unto righteousness.' I love that! It means He is at work in us and that this work is continual throughout our entire life; however, it will never be perfect in this life. It is not just 'getting better and better' and cleaning ourselves up so we look or act a certain way. Growth in the christian faith is more about seeing how great our sin is yet how great our God is. The more we grow in our relationship with the Lord the more we should realize how our every deed is tainted in sin. We should not be puffed up with pride because we see how sick our souls truly are. We should be overcome with gratitude that we have a father who has promised to make us whole. As God sanctifies us we are moved to hate our sin and love our neighbors not out of a heart to compare or make ourselves feel better, but from a heart that really is hurting for others.
Our culture hates Christians because of our self-righteousness. What if we started being honest about our lives, our struggles, and looked first at the speck in our own eye before we condemn another? We are just as flawed as the person we despise the most. While we may have different sins and therefore suffer different consequences, we are no better than the worst person we imagine. If we embrace these truths, maybe our culture would start to watch and maybe even ask us for the medicine it needs....the gospel...just as you and I need the gospel daily.
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