Why is it that we as people feel the need to pretend that we are ok? That we take this so far as to convince ourselves of things that aren't true?
I knew that I was trapped in sin, in an inability to live up to the example of Jesus. All have sinned, yet God in His grace and mercy chose to die for me so that I could live forever with Him. Sunday school textbook stuff, I know that. But I believed that in reality, I was a pretty good person - I don't swear much, I'm a virgin, people like me, I read my Bible and I pray. I kind of deserved God's love.
Last year, things changed: I was forced to see the world through a different lens. I've always believed that I had sinned and yet God forgave me. I mean, I spent 15 years struggling with pornography. But it turns out that this whole time I've compared myself to others and judged myself to be moderately deserving of God's sacrifice.
Not to sound dramatic, but then my whole began to crumble. My friends tell me that I'm a good person who made a mistake. And in some ways I understand and I agree. But I did something that I couldn't reconcile with who I believed I was. The biggest impact I found was I found myself struggling with cognitive dissonance - I wasn't who I had convinced myself that I was. And the shame - it came hard, it came heavy, and it buried me. I still showed up to lead youth, I still taught Sunday school, and I still preached a gospel. But it became so fake to me, and I was dying inside each day. But I avoided facing it so much that I didn't understand what was happening or what to do.
The facade I was living in came to a crashing halt with a single question from a friend - "Are you happy?"
I fought back tears as I processed my answer. For one of the few times in my life, the answer was NO. I wasn't happy, and I wasn't ok.
And so I began to look at things in my life. And as I looked around, I saw a mess. I realised I was hiding from church, I was isolating myself from friends, my relationship was on thin ice, I was exhausted, I was burnt out, I was falling back into old destructive habits, and I wasn't doing life with God.
I remember a conversation with my psychologist - I shared everything with him, and this realisation that I was now at 23 years old having to come to terms with the idea that I didn't deserve God's love, that I wasn't really a ‘good’ person, not when compared to God. This lie I'd always subconsciously believed, it wasn't true.
"But aren't we supposed to be good people as Christians, isn't that the whole point, to imitate Christ?" I asked
"No, the whole point is that we aren't good people and we have to accept that, accept God's gift, and live from that grace" he answered.
I don't know why it's taken me so long to understand, but this is where I'm at. And I don't know if this is obvious to everyone else, but this is something I've gone through, and it got me thinking about shame, and how important it is that we understand and grasp that we don't have it all together, we aren't 'good people'. We need to accept Gods gift of undeserved grace as we try and live more and more like he has asked us too.
Commenti