"I am just a beggar here at your door. I am just a shipwreck here on your shore" -Starfield
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" -Psalm 13:1-2
This is an in-between in the Lord's Prayer blogs :)
I was talking to Pastor David the other day and somehow we got to talking about church architecture (which is probably #1023 on my list of most interesting topics,) and he said something really interesting that has stuck with me the past few weeks. "I like cathedrals with confessionals," he said. "It reminds me we're not perfect and that we have something to confess to the God of the universe."
But it's SO true. Church is a place where broken, imperfect people come to worship a perfect God. And yet I, we, come to church with all the masks of the world on, dressed up putting our best foot forward. We make sure we don't show any of our pains or weaknesses or sin or imperfections because that would mean we don't measure up to everyone else. Or even more scary and painful, we think we somehow might not deserve to be in the presence of the God who knit us together.
One of my favorite images is a cracked jar with a candle in it. At first glance, the jar is worthless with its cracks and breaks. But then you light the candle, and realize that without those cracks, no light could get out. It takes a few cracks before the light can start shining through... Nobody is perfect. When we cover up those cracks and act like everything is always perfect, it becomes about us, and Jesus never gets a chance to shine through. But when we embrace our sin, our pain, our struggles and lay them before our merciful God, He is faithful to fill those voids, to fill in the places where we are cracked.
The bible is FULL of people like Moses and Abraham and David who were TOTALLY flawed! But in the midst of those flaws, God shined through. The Psalms are full of David's crying out because he is at the end of his rope. Job CANNOT understand why God would allow everything he has to be destroyed. Jacob wrestled with God. I count myself among these broken brothers, and as Usher says, this is my confession...
I feel pain. A LOT! When relationships aren't perfect or life doesn't take the turns I expect, it hurts! There are nights when I cry out, yell out, scream out to God asking to understand why. I lie to people because I'm afraid of the truth. I make excuses for bailing when I get afraid of committing or going out on a limb. I judge people the second I see them. My tongue is often more full of sarcasm, gossip and words to bring people down than it is with love to build people up. I'm selfish and can be terribly impatient when it comes to other people's desires and dreams. I promise to be there for people and then fall flat on following through. There are days that I feel like David, feeling like the last thing I want to do is open my bible because He feels far away.
I am not perfect. I am broken and flawed. And yet, I know there is a God who fills in those cracks and shines through. I cry out to a God who takes those flaws and makes something beautiful. None of us can say we don't need the same thing. It seems to me, the more we embrace our cracks, the brighter the candle shines through. And it's a beautiful thing...
forever unfinished...
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