Sometimes it can be so easy to pretend.
It can be so simple to show your strong side while the part of you that has questions and wanderings of the heart hides inside. It can be so convenient to look like you have it all together while a question paces inside of your soul,
“Does anyone know me?”
And sometimes you hold back just a bit, or word something just a certain way, or share a little too much just to keep up the pretending. And before you know it, you are beginning to paint a picture of what you want to look like, what you think people want, who you think you want or ought to be.
Approaching our world like a celebrity; showing our best angles and giving the good answers, while people applaud and we nod like we got it. But really, the question written on our hearts is, “but, who are we, really?”
And as we come to Jesus the game continues. The pretending keeps going.
Like I know the words to say. I know how to give the appearance of love. I know how to lift my hands. I know how this thing works.
But the question that sits on me is whether I know how to tell Jesus how I feel; to explain the aches of my heart and to sit with Him when life does not make sense. And do I know how to let my heart bleed and be honest with God?
Sometimes it is much too easy to think that God can’t handle this or that to be honest about my bleeding heart would be a threat against His holiness. And the more I believe that to be true, I can feel the sound of His longing growing distant, growing dull.
Because I can feel the beating heart of my King crying out for us to bring all of us as He brings all of Him.
And I think it takes courage.
I think it takes courage to ask God the hard questions. I think it takes bravery to come to Him and say, “I don’t know what to do.” I think it takes risk to bring your heart no matter what it looks like.
Even if it bleeds, even if its messy, even if it gets crazy, to live vulnerably before God.
To abandon completely. To trust completely. To let go of perfection completely.
What freedom.
To live unashamed before the one who made you, loves you, gets you, has you.
And so if He knocks on the door of your heart tonight and says, “Be here. Be here with Me.”
Say yes.
Or if He says, “How do you feel? What are you thinking?”
Say yes.
Or if He grabs your hand and brings you to His table and says, “Eat with me.”
Say yes.
Say yes to living vulnerably with Him. He isn’t afraid of it. He invites you into it. And as you do, your heart is going to experience all that it longs for.
