I think it would take my whole life to be in a relationship where I could be all of who I am.
I mean, look at it this way: when you have a relationship with a person, you really aren't totally there. You're always wondering what the other person sees or thinks, and you definitely have an expectation of who the other person is. That's just the way we are as human beings. If we want friends to stick around, honesty is not the best policy, and we really shouldn't wear our hearts on our sleeves.
So I've been thinking. Is it possible for me to ever be all of who I am in any relationship? I used to think that God was the only Person I could do that with, but lately, I've even been questioning that. See, it just seems like there's so much that I'm supposed to be/do/lay aside when it comes to being in a relationship with God.
I know that if I walk into a real relationship with Him, I have to be willing to lay aside my idea of who I want Him to be and accept Him as He is. But do I have to change for Him to love me? I mean, not that I want to sin purposefully or anything, but the more I think about it, the more I really wonder what He does accept in Christ. Or who.
*sigh*
So I reach the conclusion that I started out with. Somehow, in Christ, He changes me, so that who I am is all He wants. I don't understand the interplay of grace and mercy and love and holiness as He sets me apart for Himself. I just know that it's going to take my whole life.
If I walk into a relationship with God, I will be changed through knowing Him. He's just like that. You know how you have that one person in your life that you walk away from going, "wow, I feel different for having talked to you." A fun conversation, an awesome party, moments with someone you love - these all leave memories and markers on our lives and we are not the same for having experienced them.
I think knowing God is like that. I think it's not necessarily ME that needs to be shed, but MY ideas of HIM. But now we see through a glass darkly, but then, face to face. We will see Him as He is. And we will be like Him. We will want to be like Him because He will be the coolest, most wonderful Person we've ever met.
That "then" feels very far away. But hope that is seen is no hope at all.
And this, again, is why we have faith - the evidence of things not seen. And the Holy Spirit, Teacher, Comforter, Guide.
I don't get it. I don't even want to get it. I just want to be filled and changed and accepted and loved and mercified and... and so many other things that I can't be unless He changes me. I know. I've spent 26 years trying to be a good girl. I can't turn off the person I don't want to be to be the girl I want.
2 comments:
Here's a thought for you...what if redemption is Christ making us MORE ourselves than ever before? What if sin is that which destroys who we truly are, and by conquering sin and death, Christ is making me "more me", rather than less...or different? What if it isn't that he needs to change us into something more holy, more good, more acceptable in order to love us, but rather that because he already loves us, he is taking away that which detracts from us being who he made us to be?
And then, what if that freedom to be fully ourselves can transfer into our human relationships as well? Maybe redemption means we can lay aside expectations of each other and discover who we truly are. Maybe redemption means we can finally be authentic and stop hiding behind our fig leaves, and we can stop wondering what other people see or think.
Maybe redemption is about learning to live loved, rather than living up to an external measure of holiness.
Hmmm... wow, Heidi's comment pretty much said it! :-) The only thing I might add is that I think, in His eyes, we are already perfect, since He sees us through the lens of Jesus' blood. He has already forgiven us for all of our imperfections. Yet the hardest thing sometimes is for us to forgive *ourselves*. I often get bogged down in the horrible person that I feel like, when I really should be remembering that I have been freed from the power of whatever sin that I see. It's just the remembering and living like it (in His power) that's often the struggle.
I'm not sure that totally relates to this post, but it seemed relevant to me. :-p
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