Finding Faith in the Mess
The Family Series: In light of the holiday season, I thought it would benefit all of us if we went through a little family series. We all find ourselves spending a little more time with family members we may avoid throughout the year. What better …
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as …
Faith and choices. It’s messy. We need help. Lots of help. We need to know how to forgive ourselves of past choices while preparing our hearts for future ones.
Reflection.
When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
What do you say?
How do you view yourself?
Are you complimentary?
Are you self-deprecating?
Do you struggle with guilt?
What is the chatter in your head?
Psalm 103:11-13
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him…”
He has taken your sin, my sin, all our bad choices and removed them as far as the east is from the west. Nothing for you to do but accept this incomprehensible love. His love is reckless. It is so reckless that he loves you regardless of what you did yesterday, what you do today, or what you will do tomorrow.
You have a choice to make…
Are you willing and open to accept that kind of love, that reckless love, knowing you will disappoint Him again some day?
We tend you confuse God’s love. We have decided that because we mess up, we are unlovable. What we don’t realize is that while sin separates us from God, His love never ends for us.
Romans 5:8
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Me, Myself, and I
Redemption is upside down from our thinking. We usually want to change and make ourselves better before being forgiven and redeemed. But, God tells us that we are loved and forgiven before we change. That is His reckless love for us.
I think of the thief on the cross (,The Thief) the woman at the well The Woman at the Well) and the woman about to be stoned The Adulterous Woman). All three found themselves in the presence of Jesus when their lives were not up to par. Each had an experience with Him where they experienced His reckless love. While he told both women to no longer sin, he loved all of them regardless of their past transgressions. What propelled them to change was His love; a love so reckless that it was offered before any change occurred. That same love is available to you. All you have to do is acknowledge and accept it.
Others
I believe that how we view ourselves, the honest-to-goodness truth about how we see ourselves can be found in how we view others. What are the first thoughts that come to mind when others do wrong?
How do you treat others when they mess up?
Do you hang them leaving no room for redemption, grace, and change?
We live in a “hang them” world right now. There is no retribution. No redemption. No opportunity for change, healing, and growth. Only forever condemnation.
Romans 8:8
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
There should be no condemnation, yet we are a people who condemn and park in this space. If we aren’t the ones carrying the pitch forks, we become righteous filled with thoughts of, I would never do that. We end up stuffing and hiding our own sin carrying a weight we were never intended to carry.
The way we treat others when they mess up is the way we treat ourselves when we mess up. We either hang ourselves and sit in a state of self-pity or we act righteous stuffing our junk way down deep feeling heavy and exhausted. How we treat others when they do wrong matters.
It matters because it is a true reflection of how we treat ourselves when we do wrong.
Letting Go & Moving On
If we know that His love for us is reckless…
If we know He buries our sin as far as the east is from the west…
If we know there is nothing we can do to separate us from His love…
Then we need to run towards it. Run towards His love when life is good and you are following all the rules. Run towards it when life is hard and we can’t seem to make a good choice if our life depended on it. Run towards it when we fall flat on our face and don’t want to look ourselves in the eye.
His love is the starting place for any decision we make. His love and lack of condemnation is what helps you heal and forgive yourself from past mistakes. His love is what drives and lack of condemnation is what drives your decisions going forward. He didn’t condemn the thief on the cross, the woman at the well, or the adulterous woman. He didn’t wag His finger at them, slam them on social media, or sit on a panel as a talking head on a cable news show. Instead, He opened His arms and invited them in to the greatest love of all: Jesus. He does the same for you and me.
There is no condemnation in Christ. None. There is nothing you can do to separate yourself from His love. Nothing.
Run towards His love.
Romans 8: 35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Love & Blessings,
Meg
I did it, y’all. I did what we all do. I saw the controversial post and got sucked into the train wreck that is the comment feed left in its wake. This one wasn’t too bad. Well, in regards to today’s standards, that is. I …
One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:39-43
The thief on the cross. We like him. Well, most of us do. We like that he was a criminal yet, Jesus told him he would be with him in paradise. It comforts us to know that we, too, may make it to paradise one day even though we are a royal mess.
I went out on a limb and listened to a podcast with a speaker who has gone a little rogue in the Christian faith. Honestly, I was going to skip over this one because I didn’t want to hear her rhetoric, but I gave it a chance. I am glad I did. The wisdom that spewed from this author was phenomenal. Her words were thoughtful, loving, kind, and truth-filled.
So, what am I supposed to do with that?
What do we do when a respected Christian author, speaker, or pastor goes rogue on one issue of the faith but is so wise in other areas? I am wrestling hard with this right now.
One thing I know to be true is that my theology ebbs and flows as I journey through this life. I am always learning something new gaining new perspective. I am always changing; ever evolving right alongside my faith. Scripture comes to life in various ways when I study. I can read the same Scripture at different times in my life and I see different things through it.
After I finished that podcast, I went on a run and listened to a book on audio. The author has also gone a little rogue on some Christian topics. But, one thing she said got to me. She talked about her daughter’s blanket getting destroyed by the family dog. She was devastated because this was her daughter’s baby blanket and made by a family member. She took it back to that family member to see if there was anything she could do to repair the blanket. Sure enough, the blanket was fixed using the tattered pieces. Only this time, the blanket was much stronger.
This is us. We are all just tattered pieces trying to figure this faith thing out. I am fairly certain that at least one of these women changed their Christian perspective because of deep hurts in her life. Does this make her completely void in feeding our souls wisdom? Just because she is wrestling with the Truth, does that mean that we cannot garner anything from her?
We deny the true power of God when we believe He cannot use the broken. At the end of it all, we are no different than the thief on the cross. We will all enter paradise as tattered pieces; our theology not mastered.
I hate to break it to you, but your pastors and those that you think have it all figured out are also tattered pieces. My husband used to read while we were in church. He’d open his Bible and have his nose in it while the pastor preached almost as if he wasn’t listening to the lesson. I used to get so frustrated, Oh, but he was listening. He was taking what the pastor was saying and comparing it with the words of God. He knew that just because the man on the stage was a pastor did not alleviate him from being made up of tattered pieces.
We are so quick to throw people out when they get the interpretation wrong. The moment someone opens their mouth and goes against the traditional beliefs and “rules” of the faith, they are no longer qualified. Look, I am not talking about those that are obviously preaching falsities. I am also not saying that we should take everything an “authority” on the faith is saying as truth. Because, quite frankly, there are no authorities on the faith. We are all just tattered pieces trying to understand a God so big that we cannot wrap our human minds around all that He has for us.
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. John 14:15-17
We forget about the awesome tool Jesus left for us. The Spirit lives within us. Tap into that power. The Spirit will guide you to truth. You only need to be aware. We need to give ourselves permission to listen to others even when we disagree; even when we disagree on spiritual things. God can use anyone. He uses the tattered pieces to save souls. The broken are his game plan. Read the Bible. Is there one perfect teacher besides Jesus? You will not find one.
We will all be broken, tattered pieces, when we enter paradise. Each and everyone of us. Some of our theology will be on point, while some of it will be way off target. That’s okay. God never called us to understand. Just believe. The thief on the cross got this. Unlike the other criminal hanging with them who was held-up by theology, the thief knew the heart of the matter: salvation. We can look at his story and see where theology got him. One stood with Jesus in paradise not because he understood God, but because he got to the matter of his heart: believing in a Savior.
Don’t be afraid to listen to the broken people; those tattered pieces. You are in good company there for this is where Jesus resides.
Love & Blessings,
Meg
