This Jesus is different.

 

I finished my service to the World Race yesterday. While I’m not quite sure where the past two years went, I have been very reminiscent about the whole thing the past few days. People have asked me what drew me to the World Race in the first place. This is my answer.

 

I didn’t expect to be accepted. After all, I was honest on my application, probably the only missionary application I had ever filled out when I didn’t make myself out to look better than I actually was. I talked about things with my interviewer that my best friends didn’t know, I checked the boxes that applied on the “challenges” section, and I was very nervous about them.

 

I had an incredible set of believing friends in college. Maybe they all told each other exactly what their struggles were. I did not. Because I was on leadership teams, because I had been raised in church, because I knew that I couldn’t let people see me the way I really was, I figured it was easier to bear my pains and fears about myself rather than share them. And I had good reason.

 

I had a friend who struggled with a certain issue that most evangelicals consider “dangerous” and “unnatural”. Even though she participated in these things years before she was transformed by Jesus, when she was honest to her ministers and family about it, they raked her over the coals over and over again. They said she needed rehabilitation, she needed to be shipped away to a “spiritual cleansing”, to come to terms with how depraved she was, to receive forgiveness of the church and an assesment of the leadership if she would be fit to lead. This, years after she had received forgiveness from Jesus, years after she had not ever turned.

 

Even though my struggles seemed “lesser” by comparison (there is no “lesser” with God, only with man) I wasn’t about to let myself be questioned or held accountable. God led me to be honest on my World Race application. I anticipated the hammer to fall, to shatter me and I would willingly shoulder the shame and disappointment I was for not being a better Christian. If the World Race spit on me and told me to get out, I’d quietly stomach my humble pie, strap on my pack full of shame, and drag my feet out into a Christian world that I knew would devour me if I only showed them what was in the bag.

 

If the World Race told me I wasn’t fit to be a missionary with all my faults and fears, then they would most certainly be right. I wasn’t worthy and I knew it. If they beat me to a bloody pulp, I wouldn’t open my mouth; I’d just thank God that I wasn’t so stupid as to open up to those closest to me, simultaneously tucking away all the poison of rejection further inside my stone fortress.

 

Early one December morning, about an hour before my first class, I got a phone call. I was half-asleep, but the unfamilar number on my phone clenched my stomach in waves of knots and nausea. I answered to hear a woman’s voice on the phone.

 

“We wanted to call you and talk to you first. After your interview and review of your application, we would like to tell you that you have been accepted to the World Race.”

 

 I remember leaping up on my bed and jumping up and down, tears in my eyes, excitement moving me. I couldn’t stop saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

 

In that moment, I wasn’t just thanking the World Race.

 

 I was thanking God.

 

 

A God I had subconsciously seen as eager to shovel dumptruck loads of shame on me, in that moment, said to me,

 

 

 I often get asked, “What is the thing that changes you the most about the World Race? What makes it any different than other organizations?”

 

And I always tell them something like this:

 

I lived in a world with my failures tucked away from sight, but prominently displayed inside of me, silently undermining and invalidating everything I did. “If only people knew what I’ve done, if only they knew what I am still doing, no one would call me worthy of ministry.” But within me, a deep, burning desire to be a minister, to serve Jesus, propelled me to keep going forward, to keep ignoring the shame I was carrying.

 

I had friends that, when voluntarily honest about past sins, were then and there ordered to get “help”, even for things that were no  longer issues in their lives. Once someone was outted about a sin, public or private, they were asked to resign from leadership positions in the church, they were made to offer public apologies, they were strong-armed into 12 step programs. And whether or not they were asked to follow these processes or not, and whether they entered into these processes or not, once their pasts (and presents) were made public knowledge, quiet arrows of accusation and assumption flew about them everywhere they went.

 

 

 

 

At the time I applied for the World Race, I had no self-worth. None. I had to make myself look like I had it together to everyone. If I didn’t call someone back and they asked me about it, I’d lie about my phone being messed up right then and there because I needed to be perfect in their eyes. Perfect friends always text back, and if I didn’t, I needed a reason. I needed a reason because the more I shoved the failures deeper within, the more I found things to hate within myself.

 

I was a spiritual fraud and a horrible person, and though no one else but me saw it, I saw it 24-7. If other people had absolutely nothing to hold against me, then I was worth something. I needed them to need me, not for them as much as for me.

 

And if I was ever not perfect, if I ever let someone down, if I ever got caught in a lie, I’d fold in on myself in a torrent of self-hatred and despair, further adding to my worthlessness and guilt.

 

Trust me, no one can be perfect. No one can get it right every single day, every single time. My performance was entirely based on me, a girl who had to “catch the flu three times in a semester” to justify to my teachers and my friends that I had a reason to lie in bed for days on end. You know, a justifiable reason, not anything like debilitating depression.

 

And if I had people around me saying…

 

 

or…

 

 

In my mind, people loved me based on my perfections, based on how good I was. If they were saying those things about me, I don’t know what would happen. Depression like I’d never experienced, most likely. Would I have anything worth living for after that? Life was already as hard as I could stand it, one more ounce on my back and I was sure it would snap my spine and smother me under the mountain of my inadequacies.

 

In a world where I had to be perfect, the World Race told me,

 

“We absolutely know you’re not perfect, but you’re accepted anyway. There is nothing that disqualifies you, and you have access to the same opportunity that is afforded to anyone.”

 

And that is grace.

 

And that is Jesus.

 

Not the Jesus that I had seen presented to my friend when her minister told her, “You need to do X, Y and Z before you can be truly sorry, and then you have to do A-Z and back again before we’ll even consider letting you lead this group like you wanted, and that will be after at least a two year period of proving yourself to the church and community that you have the capacity to stay on the right track and serve Jesus like a leader fit to lead.”

 

Not the Jesus that I had seen in all the just-under-their-breath whispers about the follies and sins of the vulnerable.

 

Not the Jesus I had been trying to prove myself before time and time again.

 

The World Race’s Jesus said,

 

“I accept you, in every possible way.”

 

Michael Hindes, the director for the World Race, has a very powerful message entitled, “Grace is an embarassment to the church.” And as shocking as that might seem at first glance, I’ve seen this message verified my entire life. It defined my idea about Jesus and what it takes to be a minister and a “Good Christian”.

 

We sing “Amazing Grace”, but how often do you see the church, as an institution, offer grace that is truly amazing?

 

 

 

 

 

If the church responded by opening their arms, hearts, ears, and minds to a whole person, regardless of whatever is found in their lives that disqualifies them, than that would truly be embarassing, wouldn’t it?

 

It seems wrong, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t they have to pay penance? Shouldn’t they have to prove themselves?

 

Well, yeah… If they are proving their worth as “Good Christians” to you. But if they’re proving that they are human, that they make colossal mistakes, that they have niggling questions, and that they aren’t perfect but is looking for the one guy who is, then love would be a great way to respond.

 

Because that’s how the one guy who is perfect responded.

 

If this this is still bothering you and if you think this answer is not good enough, too easy, or misguided, let me tell you this for sure…

 

When I received acceptance from a Jesus organization with full knowledge of all my faults, it made me change my idea about a Jesus I grew up hearing about, studying, and trying to emulate.

 

When I knew I was accepted with a full knowledge of those faults, being able to accept love was so easy. I never felt worthy to accept that love before, but when I knew my acceptance wasn’t contingent upon me being acceptable, I was wide open to receive that love.

 

And that love healed me and made me who I am. As I watched that love in practice and began to practice the love that I watched, I not only transformed even more, I watched those traveling with me be transformed, and I watched those all around the world — prostitutes, murderers, and abusers — be transformed.

 

So, if you are afraid of offering grace and love unconditionally, that’s okay. I’m not saying condone the action. But I am saying that dwelling on a few errors and wrongdoings only hurt and invalidate a whole person. Look into the person and love them. Offer them grace to be wrong and meet them where they are and love them out of all the hell they are in.

 

Then, Jesus.

 

Jesus.

His grace to me was not without effect