There are times in my life when I feel like I have conquered something, something of pure greatness or something that is an accomplishment that will satisfy me. As I hit these milestones I feel less excited about hitting the next one. I believe the reason why is because these milestones are created by broken humans, including myself. These milestones are ones that may fulfill us for a day, a week or even a month. But, eventually that satisfaction will wear away and you will want the next thing. Unfortunately that is the brokenness of life.
This is a feeling that I have been experiencing big time in my life recently. One that keeps leaving me flat on the ground, trying to find satisfaction in friends, work, taking care of others and pretty much anything else you can think of. After traveling for a year on the World Race, I had feelings that left me wanting more, desiring more from life and from God. If you ever had an experience that is totally eye-opening, heart-changing and a growth in self-awareness then you know what I’m talking about. You want to experience the BIG God moments, you want to learn something new everyday, you want to travel and see the World. Yet, the Race was only a season, and God is with us in all seasons.
After the World Race I had confidence that was beaming, a confidence in who I was, where my beliefs and faith were, where my identity is and what I am passionate about. What I didn’t know was that my pride was fully there and ready to take me down an ugly path of selfishness and judgement. Pride is hard to deal with because it’s such a twisted web of lies, the enemy not only tells you that you know better than people but that you are better than people. Pride tells you that you are perfect and know right from wrong, and that you have conquered all fears and sin. That is the opposite of how I ever want to treat people and love them. God’s desire is for us to love God and love others, to believe and repent.God tells us that we are so broken and will never be perfect, but that’s okay because he still loves us. With pride involved it becomes a selfish game of how can I be perfect, how can I be better than others, how I can compete even with myself. So I guess with pride comes perfectionism, and perfectionism is a place that you put yourself in God’s shoes.
All of us perfectionists out there are legit putting themselves as God, putting pressure on themselves to be everything to everyone but also to themselves. Guess what y’all? We are the complete opposite of perfect, we are broken so that our perfect savior could come down and die for us. The harder I try to be perfect the farther away I get from God’s love and from his desires for me. Why is that? It’s because I will never be perfect, and I know we hear that all the time. But don’t you see? Perfection is taking us farther away from the people we want to be. The more we try to be perfect the more we will let ourselves down, and the more we let ourselves down the worse we feel about ourselves and the more we will want to hit that next unsatisfying milestone.
What I’ve been learning is that the more we admit we are broken, the greater the freedom that comes. I txted one of my sweet cousins today and asked her for prayer, I told her that I had done something stupid and was feeling guilty and exhausted from life. The simple words she said to me were “Sam you’re not perfect you’re a sinner, and there is grace for you at the cross.” I realized in that moment that she’s right, I don’t have to be perfect in order to deserve anything.
The funny part about this all is that I thought I understood what a relationship with God meant, I also thought that I had conquered some of my sin patterns. But that’s the enemy building up my pride to blind me from my brokenness, “The enemy only comes to steal, kill and destroy, I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the full.” -Jesus (John 10:10). That comes straight from the lips of God himself, God literally acknowledges that the enemy is real and is working against us. Later on in Jesus’ life he says “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” -Jesus (Matthew 16:23). This is the truth, he will continue to be a stumbling block, but the cool thing is that God is the building block.
When I think about God and our life, I think about those giant jenga sets. People, the world, the enemy, your own brokenness will continue to try and take those pieces out, but what God does is take those broken pieces of you and builds you right back up. He takes that piece that has been pulled out, mends your heart and builds you up. He uses our brokenness to build us on a foundation that is solid. You may be thinking, but eventually the jenga set topples over and yeah sometimes that does happen. I’ve been there and I’m sure most of us have, feeling like your jenga pieces are scattered all over the floor. Those pieces are what makes us who we are, all of them. You always hear that God uses our greatest weaknesses to become our greatest strength, and I truly believe that.Yet those pieces that feel the most broken don’t just get to be thrown out, they are mended and restored and built back up. When you submit to God, he helps you build that foundation on solid rock, those pieces are still there but you have to build them on the foundation which he gives us.
The story that this reminds me of is the foolish and wise builders “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. 26 But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” (Matthew 7:24-27)
I don’t know about you but I really want my house to stay standing, there are a few times that it’s fallen down, but even if it does God’s love is right there shining through. Sometimes it’s through a person, prayer, scripture, nature or God just straight speaking to me. The crazy thing is that we have to daily build our house and our pieces, we don’t just conquer something in a day, a week, a year or even sometimes in our whole lives. Today I’m admitting that I am super broken right now and will always be. I am not perfect, even when I want to try and be perfect. Today, I’m gonna let God take my jenga piece and build me up once more.
