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You are free to mess up. You are free to fail.
Most of all, you are free to struggle.
 
Not something we hear all the time right? The world around us is striving for perfection. The best you do is never good enough. No matter how hard you try, you always seem to make a mistake. Is this true with other people or just me? I can premeditate doing a task, take so much time in the planning, but in the end something still goes wrong. 

My walk with Christ is the same way. I plan to spend time in God's word. I plan to say something nice to someone instead of something hurtful. I plan to pray for others consistently. I plan, I plan, I plan. What happens most of the time? I fail. I forget. I fall on my face hard. 

But you know what God says???
 

"It's okay. I still love you. In me there is grace enough to cover any mistake you make, no matter how big. I FORGIVE YOU!"
 
We are free to struggle, but we are by no means struggling to be free. What does that even mean? How do we make sense of that? God's grace is strong enough to cover ALL the mistakes we make, and then the healing process begins. God wants to deliver us from our struggles. We are free because of the price Jesus Christ paid when he died and bled on the cross. We are free because of the chains that were broken when he burst forth ALIVE on the third day. This is where our freedom is found. 

Why is it so hard to accept that? We really do want that perfection. But we want to attain it ourselves. We have to realize that only IN CHRIST can we attain our righteousness. The struggles we face day to day are what make us imperfect on our own. These are the things that bring us to our knees and make our relationship with Christ stronger. These are the things that help us see that our identity is now found in Christ. 

So yes….We are free to struggle, but we are not struggling to be free!

God loves us so much that sometimes struggles are an act of his love in our lives. They bring us closer to him. They also help us realize that these struggles and pain are only temporary. Our life on Earth was not meant to be free of pain. That's what sets heaven apart and makes us long for it to come soon. 

"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." – Romans 5:3-5

May my prayer be that God would do anything it takes to keep me close. Even if that means going through patches of pain. In the end it will be more than worth it. 

(This blog was inspired by the song by Tenth Avenue North, the Struggle. It's a great song with sound doctrine…listen to it sometime.)