Today I had a freak out. The big wet, sobby ones that you don’t really like to admit you have since they make you feel weak. It wasn’t supposed to be this way; I was supposed to be a pillar of strength, a good missionary, one with no major problems to work through. But, that doesn’t truly exist.
Since last month, I have been becoming increasingly aware that the world as I know it doesn’t really exists. It’s been like waking up from the matrix and seeing that all you perceived are really things you can’t even begin to wrap your mind around. And as a scientist who is used to having all the right answers, it destroyed me.
I was having a little discussion/argument with my team about grace vs justice. I have always been a justice person. I think in Binary. It’s yes or no, black or white, one or zero. Done. Easy to understand. And next thing you know my heart is vomiting out all the deepest darkest feelings that I am so good at hiding. Deep in my heart there is a lie hidden in a seed of truth.
“You are unworthy of even loving God, let alone having Him love you. And there is nothing you can do to, give, or become that will change that.”
At that moment, as I opened up to my teammates both with words and tear ducts, I found myself saying things I never voiced before:
I hated being unworthy to love Him. I hated being a work in progress. I hated that there was nothing I could give God. And I hated that “Grace” covered it all and somehow magically made me worthy.
In my mind grace did one of two things: 1). It placed a person even farther into the debt of the one giving the grace (my case) or 2). It enabled people to selfishly not give to God or others under the assumption that it’s “covered”.
My matrix view of the world was a bit cynical, BUT don’t get me wrong, God calls us to justice and works as much as He calls us to grace, I just didn’t have a balance of them yet. Mainly because my binary mind didn’t want to do things case-by-case, but instead just wanted a straight yes/no, one/zero, black/white in this techno-colored world.
AND I JUST COULDN’T STAND THE FACT THAT THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD POSSIBLY GIVE THE ONE WHO LOVED ME MORE THAN ANYTHING. I COULDN’T STAND IT, THAT THIS SIDE OF DEATH, I COULD NEVER BECOME THE PERSON I THOUGHT I NEEDED TO BE IN ORDER TO BE WORTHY OF HIS LOVE.
All my life, I never understood how people could not believe in a creator with the marvels of the world surrounding us. But for the first time in my life, I could see why people chose not to be in a relationship with Him. Because how can we stand to be loved by someone we are so unworthy to be loved by?
I felt like a Gomer, who as a disgusting prostitute could never ever have loved Homer the way he loved her. Who could never feel worthy of his love, who never felt like she could give him anything. And for that reason she kept running away. How can we not run away too when we know who we are comparatively?
And the Sunday school answer is Jesus. Jesus’ defeat of death turned us into spotless, Spirit-filled, missionaries. The fact that He gave us worth…gives us worth.
Here’s a story- There was a tribe of natives in a far off land. By measuring a woman’s beauty, they would determine what her dowry would be in cows. An average woman’s father would receive perhaps 2 or 3 cows for her hand in marriage. The most beautiful woman in the village was worth perhaps 6 cows tops. A wealthy man fell in love with a poor ugly woman. I don’t say ugly to be mean, but everyone knew that she would be lucky to receive a single cow as dowry. This man fell so madly in love with her that he gave her father 12 cows! People were stunned! This doesn’t make sense, but it happened. And as the woman began her marriage to the man, her face began to change. As she saw herself to be considered worthy, and to walk in it, she grew in confidence, strength, and beauty.
Because she was given value, not because of anything she could do, she was valuable. And once she walked in that knowledge, she lived as a valued and beautiful person.
So it is the same with us. We are not worthy inherently. But Jesus bought us for way more than 12 cows. God gave us a new identity-we are no longer a one cow wife, but he instead calls us “Beloved”.
Daily, I have to take the head knowledge of all those Sunday school answers I know, and I need to change them into heart knowledge. I need to remind myself, hourly if needed, that I am no longer a Gomer, that I am “Beloved” from Song of Solomon. I am the lily among thorns… not for anything that I can do, or give, but because I am.
As for grace, I need to sit and receive. I don’t need to be mad that there is no way to earn things, or re-pay God for His love. But instead, I need to just be me, because, somehow (beyond my comprehension) God actually likes me that way. So, here’s to grace, the difficultly of just saying thank you God, and knowing that’s all I can give.
THANK YOU GOD. (And thank you to my teammates who gave me grace and allowed me to stay home from our ministry of teaching at school today so I could mentally work out this whole grace thing. Irony huh? I didn’t even think I liked grace…wasn’t worthy of it, but that’s the strange beauty of the whole thing, right?
Thank you.)
