I have always struggled with my imperfection. I know in my mind that no one is perfect, that we all fall short of the mark...but my heart still wishes I was perfect, like all the other “perfect” people out there. I worry about the way others perceive me, I worry about “looking Christian,” I worry about being cool and accepted by my peers, I worry about fitting in.
Raise your hand if you’re ever fallen for that lie before.
And it is a lie, trust me. The beginning of Romans 12:1 says “Do not be conformed to this world.” The verse goes on, but even without that context, the meaning of this phrase is simple. While that topic is big enough for more lengthy discussion, it proves the point. Fitting in isn’t the point.
If we think of church, what comes to mind? Fun summer camps, memorizing Bible verses, singing songs, nodding in agreement to well-spoken sermons? Perfect people displaying their perfect lives?
Wrong.
In Matthew 9:11-12, the Pharisees see Jesus eating with his disciples and a plethora of others; tax collectors are among them. “And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard it, he [he being Jesus] said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.’” Jesus didn’t come to congratulate the well-off, my friends. He came to heal the sick, to mend the broken.
The church isn’t a museum; it’s a hospital. And the beautiful thing is, we are all in different stages in our healing, in our sickness, in our “being made well.” We like to pretend we have it all together, that nothing is wrong, but in reality...we are all there to see the same doctor. So why, then, do we allow ourselves to be blindsided by the enemy’s lie that we can never be good enough?
C.S. Lewis wrote about the “Law of Human Nature” in his book Mere Christianity. The idea is that we have written into us a standard of behavior that we know we should follow. It’s why we have excuses for being late, for forgetting important engagements, it’s the guilt we feel whenever we “miss the mark” of whatever ingrained standards we have written on our human souls. This is the crux of the matter; we know we aren’t good enough, that we can never be good enough to meet that standard.
The enemy is on the offense in the game of life at all times; his focus is to attack us in any way possible, no matter how subtle or blatant the attack must be, and often the very first place he attacks, at least in my own experience, is at my identity, at who I am. This is where I always felt (and still sometimes feel) so shaky in my walk with Christ; it’s when I forget who I am in Christ that the enemy gains a foothold in my mind and begins bringing to light all of my failures and shortcomings.
This is when the glory of God comes into play. He has paid the ultimate price for us, He has done the unthinkable and given up His own life to see us set free. He didn’t set us free to go back to the darkness and self-centeredness that He saved us from! What kind of thanks is that? What kind of example is that, for me to say “I’m a Christian!” but then immediately turn around and start cowering in the presence of my failures, of my mistakes, of my past screw-ups? How am I different, how are you different, if you haven’t realized just what it means to be set free?
This is how I am choosing to be different; if God can use my story, my mistakes, my failures, then why can He not also use the successes, the victories, His successes and victories in my life?
I must come to terms with the fact that Christ came to save me, a broken, screwed up human being who can’t even meet her own standards of “goodness,” not just the “good people” who I seem to think have already arrived at their destination in God’s plan for them, when in reality they’re struggling with something, too. To come to terms with this, I must conquer my fear of my failures and mistakes, and to conquer these things, I need to begin to see how God is choosing to use my experiences to make me into the person He wants me to be.
And I challenge you to do the same; do not fear your past. Christ’s love doesn’t care how awful you think you are. Christ’s love simply takes you from who you were and transforms you into who you will be. And I think that’s incredibly freeing.
