the simple that is true

Several years ago, God really challenged me to speak the truth in my heart before Him. I don't just mean speaking the Truth - reciting Scripture, etc - but setting aside my own self-justification and ideas of what was true about me and being completely honest with Him about what I knew was going on inside me. This meant admitting to a lot of things that I'd never acknowledged before, letting Him in on the things that "shouldn't" be talked about, and being practically honest about both my feelings and my sin.

Obedience to Him in this area dramatically changed my relationship with Him. I left what had been a static, affectionate, rather distant approach to a God I knew was true for a dynamic, passionate vulnerability that required a drastic trust. The extra of the "what is supposed to be" was slowly pared down to the "what is" and I found that much of what I believed I needed to be a Christian and know God was really just extra stuff piled on to support my own human idea of spirituality.

Any human can be spiritual. We are spiritual by nature, created in the image of God to be more than just chemicals and hormones and flesh and blood and bone. There is much in this world that we call holy that is not necessarily of God.

As my human perspective of spirituality has been refocused on simply the Truth that is Jesus Christ and nothing else, I have found that so much of what I thought I had to do to please God was for me only a cover-up of the depth of my heart, the truth of who I am that I never shared with anyone, least of all the God who created me.

I'm not naturally a rebel, so letting go of the things I feel I am supposed to be has not been easy, but what I am finding beneath the surface is a simplicity I could only dream of having a few years ago as I was trying to cover all my bases with God. I'm finding that it is possible to really want to know God, that it is possible to live my life in Jesus Christ without adding anything of my own to sweeten the deal. All my righteousness is as filthy rags, you know. The spiritual gain I sought before in trying to please God by doing right or supporting the right cause or fighting the right battle is really pretty worthless.

I am finding that I can live in only one place: the simplicity of the truth that I know only by faith in Jesus Christ and what He became human and lived and died to do - to bring me into relationship with a God I have tried and failed to be. The excess "supposed to" is being removed, and I'm discovering something real, something more true than the vague, universal, human spirituality, a hope that transcends this time and this flesh, that enables me to be in the world, and I am not of it.

I never understood before what it means to live this way. I'm not sure I understand now. But I do know it. And I know it by faith in the Son of God. His work is to believe Him who He sent. And I do.

And that too is His doing.