As Christians we have this bad habit of telling our struggles past tense.
“Before, I was like this, but thanks to Jesus look at me now.”
We have this pressure to appear scarred but whole.
Like we’ve come through the fire, but it’s all clear now.
There’s this idea of a flipswitch moment. We were bad, we accepted Jesus. BAM! perfect saints.
It’s a lie.
We are being made perfect IN CHRIST. He died BECAUSE we couldn’t do it.
WE CAN NOT BE PERFECT.
Not in this lifetime.
A testimony is a story. Not a story of how we became so great…A story of what God has done/is doing.
This is one of my testimonies.
This is what God is doing.
He is in the midst of a process of delivering me from seven years of suicidal depression.
And when I say in the process, I mean that I am currently on a missions trip serving Jesus, who I love with all my heart, and I am battling suicidal tendencies.
I am loved. I am redeemed. I am a child of the King. And I am struggling.
I have been through the fire. I am scarred… But I’m bleeding too.
I know the joy of the Lord, I know His peace, and I know His love.
And yet.
Here I am.
The truth is, when Jesus died on that cross He paid the price that He knew we couldn’t pay. He conquered death. And He is victorious over the darkness… But the darkness isn’t gone yet.
And some days the darkness weighs so heavy on me. I can’t explain the reason. I don’t know why. It’s just this aching crushing pain that comes sometimes that I don’t know how to carry.
But facing darkness doesn’t change the power of the light.
My friend asked me when I feel closest to Jesus and I was honest for maybe the first time in my life.
The closest I’ve ever been to Jesus was under a bridge with a knife in my hand. It’s the most at the end of myself, the most desperate, and the most real I’ve ever been. And He was there.
I’ve asked God a thousand times why I’m like this. Why He doesn’t just give me His joy. I’ve cried out to Him in desperation and even fear. I don’t understand why I battle this.
Maybe I never will.
But there’s one thing He assured me of. His plan for me hadn’t changed. His faithfulness is the same.
He is the Lord my God and HE DOES NOT FORSAKE ME.
I may be broken, but He is whole.
I may be weak, but He is strong.
I may face darkness, but He is light.
I may stumble, but He makes my way straight.
I may fail, but He is faithful.
Christians aren’t perfect, and we aren’t supposed to be. We are just broken people who got down on our knees and admitted that we are broken.
And you know what?
That’s all God asked.
If you’re a Christian and you’re wondering why you still screw up, then congratulations, you’re real!
If you’re a Christian and you’ve got it all together… Well that’s a scarier place to be.
Do you remember the parable of the Pharisee and the sinner praying?
The Pharisee prayed and thanked God that he wasn’t like the sinner.
The sinner prayed and cried out in brokenness to God.
Who do you think God was pleased with?
You guessed it.
It wasn’t the religious leader.
It was the broken sinner.
That’s us.
We are each and everyone of us a beautiful crazy mess and thats ok.
If Jesus wanted us to be perfect he would have made us robots. He wants relationship. He wants our real. Our messiness. Our ugliness. Our brokenness. He wants it all. He died for it. He died for us. And you know what? When God looks at you He doesn’t see your mess, He sees the blood of Jesus covering your mistakes… Not just the mistakes of the past but the mistakes of the present and the future too.
When God looks at me He doesn’t see a broken failure. He sees His daughter. And when I’m struggling, when I’m weighted down with everything He isn’t dissatisfied with me, He’s there standing over me declaring to the darkness, “This ones mine. You can’t have her.”. And He’s there telling me that He still has a plan, He’s still faithful, and He will never let me go.
Y’all, I will never in this life be perfect.
The image of judgemental perfect christians with their lives all together is what drives many people from the church. Better to face real life with the compassion of the secular world than to face it with the hypocrisy and condemnation of the Christian world.
The enemy has twisted what is God’s greatest gift and made it into this competition. Who can look the holiest? Sing the loudest during worship? Preach the most theological sermon? Who can put on the best facade of having their life all together?
Guys, I played that game and let me tell you, it’s empty. It’s dry. And at the end of the day, you’ve still screwed up, you’re just alone in it. The beautiful purpose of community is not to save each other… We have a Savior… it’s to carry things together. To bear one another’s burdens. To fight with and for each other.
What if we weren’t afraid to be real?
What if it wasn’t taboo to struggle?
What if instead of judging we reached out to each other?
What if instead of hiding our struggles, we brought them into the light?
What if we made a choice to bear our brothers and sisters burdens?
What if we made a choice to fight for the body?
What if we actually followed Jesus’ command? LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
Can you imagine the driving force of a unified body of believers that fought for each other?
We can’t do that if everybody’s pretending to be perfect.
I am not where I was when I was 17. When I’m 40 I won’t be in the same place I’m in now. I am growing. I am learning. And Jesus is refining me all through all of it.
I am on the path to freedom, but it’s a process. It’s a lifelong process in fact. There is no flipswitch moment where I suddenly attain perfection.
I will always be flawed, I will always need my savior’s grace. But there’s the beauty of the thing, see?
Cause Jesus claims me anyway.
So, cut the charade.
God’s gonna keep refining you anyway, may as well admit it.
