On Being Imperfect

We are all imperfect. By 8:00 some days I wish I had a redo button. Some days before I get out the door I need a do over. I FINALLY finished reading my book that I have been reading forever.

Before I read this one,I read Give them Grace and Glimpses of Grace. You would think that I would get grace by now. I don't know that you ever fully understand that word and all that comes with it, but those glimpses throughout life are amazing.

Yesterday, I heard something profound. Friday night, friends had this conversation. We have a generation of people who call themselves Christians but are so very confused and misled. There are various reasons for this.

I once knew this girl that got "saved" like every month. I am not being funny. She really did. She was baptized four times that I can remember. I can't judge. Growing up anytime anybody said the "sinner's prayer" I did too because I didn't want to get left out of heaven and that prayer was my ticket. Only big people knew the right words and all I had to do was say them right after they did. It was difficult to mess it up. I prayed it every time somebody said, "repeat after me...."

Then, I started wondering if there was a limit to how many times you could pray it. Eventually, it all came together for me and I figured out it wasn't the prayer saving me.

Grace and the sinner's prayer are two areas that I was "misled/lacked understanding." Just like I thought you had to pray it all the time, I used to really struggle with when grace would run out. In life, your grace with people/relationships tends to run dry or out completely. People leave. They give up on each other. Love fails. It took me a long time to truly understand that God's love doesn't fail. It doesn't leave. It doesn't just go away. Neither does His grace. Everybody has the real you and the secret you that nobody can hear, but yourself. I guess like the little devil on your shoulder type deal.

The real you is out there for everyone to see all the time. The devil you is there for you, God, and the ones closes to you because usually that you shows up with those you love most. God loves the whole me. The whole you. The good and the bad. The broken and whole. He loves all of me. I can't make him stop. I don't control the situation. I am not in control. It is about just me.

I think women tend to struggle with this a whole lot more than men. I guess it is like a hormonal situation or something. God's grace and love are not limited.

In the book I was reading, the author talks about Eve. You hear the story of Adam and Eve and you think God kicked them out of Eden because his was giving them what they deserved. He was disappointed. Nope. I have never looked at it past this.  He did it not because they ate from the tree. It was the other tree. The Tree of Life. This tree gave life. No death. No disappointment. No heartache. No aging. No fear. No sickeness. When they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, sin entered the world. It was corrupt. It was evil. God's love and mercy sent them out of the garden. Not his anger. Not his disappointment. If they had stayed in the garden, they would have kept eating from the tree of life and lived forever. They would have just been stuck there rolling in sin all the time, but living forever. God wouldn't allow that for people that He loved. His love and mercy sent them out. His grace and love sent Jesus to rescue mankind. Redemption. Rescued. Mercy. Grace.

I never saw the story of Adam and Eve about God. Of course I didn't. I tried to make the Bible about me. They were the reason I sinned. It was about me. It was about Adam and Eve, they were the first characters in the Bible. Lowly me.  Sinful Adam and Eve. I learned segmented Bible stories growing up that were about cute characters that I viewed as Bible heroes. I didn't see them as characters in a huge story of a Great Rescuer. I didn't see the whole picture of a huge redemptive story. I didn't see them as sinners, they were in the Bible. We are selfish selfish selfish. By we, I mean humans. We attempt to make everything about us. We even try to make the Bible about solely us. When we go through the Bible and miss the Redeemer piece in each story, we create holes. Holes that we try to fill with more us. It is a very scary thing to watch happen. Unfortunately, it leaves room for doubt, confusion, wrong thinking, and false teaching just to name a few.

The bottom line is that He loves His children. He loves me when I am ugly and sinning. He loves me when I am broken. He loves me when I throw temper tantrums. He loves me when I blow my top. He loves me, all of me, all the time. He loves me so much that he won't leave me stuck in those ruts. If I just trust Him, He walks with me through the journey of being imperfect. He's not leaving.