March.
Oh, March. March was possibly the hardest month for me on the Race. Full of ups and then very low downs. But the more I reflect on the whole month, I more I realize this might’ve been the best month for me spiritually. The more I look back, the more I realize God’s constant presence, his consistent voice in my life, and His never changing grace and love that was at my right hand. He stood by me through the whole month whispering, ‘Alex, I love you. You are worth dying for.’
The hard part about knowing the vastness and completeness of God’s love is realizing we don’t deserve it. But we all want to. I wanted to be adequate. I wanted to be adequate for my team, in construction (our main ministry in Nicaragua), and for the people I loved back home. But I wasn’t. I snapped at my team and wrote them off as people who didn’t actually care for me. I struggled in construction. I mean is it any surprise to anyone that moving piles and piles of dirt and bricks isn’t exactly my strong point? No, it’s not. And heart breaking news from someone I love back home caused me to wonder why exactly anyone, especially God, loved me in the first place. I was physically sick and sick of living like a missionary. I was done.
‘Alex, I love you. You are worth dying for.’
I’ve always been a fairly confident person. I’ve known who I was, what I was good at, and even liked what I looked like. But that was based on what the world thought of me. As my confidence was stripped away this month, I realized my mistake. My validation was not rooted in what the Lord thought of me. So when the worldly things ceased to matter or broke apart, I felt like a shell of a person, simply taking up space. And the more I tried to something ‘good’ or something ‘right’ the more I fell flat on my face with my falling confidence right behind me.
‘Alex, I love you. You are worth dying for.’
Feeling inadequate sucks. You feel like anything you do or say will be dumb and useless. You feel like you can’t do anything right and you’re not even good enough to have the privilege of people loving you. Feeling inadequate is a lie. And nothing more. In Song of Songs the Lord says to us, ‘All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.’ (chapter 4, verse 7).
That’s the thing about being worthy. None of us are and ever will be as ourselves. There’s nothing we could ever do to earn that title because we’ve all fallen short. But there’s also nothing we could do to lose that title.
We are because Christ is. We’re good because Christ inside us good. We’re purposeful because Christ inside us is purposeful. We’re confident because Christ inside us is confident. We’re loving because Christ inside us is loving. We’re worthy because Christ inside us is worthy.
“He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirits in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come,” 2 Corinthians 1:21. Jesus died for us and took us as His own. We are His alone and He will never stop loving us and wanting us. “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you,” 1 John 2:27. And that can never change, ever. We actually have the freedom to not be enough, to not be adequate because Jesus was and always will be.
Since Easter is on Sunday, I thought this was an appropriate lesson for God to teach me this month. And now, it being Good Friday, I know I can be completely, and nothing short of, thankful for what Christ did for us all those years ago because I know I didn’t deserve it. But He did it anyway because The Lord thinks I am worth dying for.
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