I have something to confess.
I’m a Christian failure.
I worry about just about everything. I am far from Christian when someone cuts me off on the freeway. I can be hot headed at times. I get depressed relatively easily. I don’t pray very much, and when I do, it’s rarely meaningful. I’m not a very good husband a lot of the time. I’m not very patient with my kids. I think I might be with the rich young ruler in walking away sadly if Jesus called me to sell all my stuff. I don’t give enough to the poor, or my church. Sometimes, the pain in the world makes me just want to shut everything off and play Angry Birds.
I think I’m exactly where God wants me.
Listen, I have absolutely no idea how to follow God. I don’t know how to get close to him, although I know many techniques to try. I don’t know how this whole thing is going to turn out at the end of my life. I don’t even know if things are going to get any better with the whole faith experiment I’ve been a part of for the past two decades.
I really, really suck.
And yet, there’s something liberating about coming to terms with who I am. I can stop trying to keep it all together because the fact is, I’m broken and will continue to be. I can stop believing that if I just do the right things, I will get closer to God and become the follower that I’ve wanted to be since college. I can stop pretending that I have any idea whatsoever about how to stop sinning. I can finally give all of the trying over to God.
I can’t fix myself. I also can’t prevent the world from turning my life into its own personal dumping ground. But what I can do is dive into the ocean of grace. My only trust can be in the One who took on all of my garbage (and that of the entire world) on the cross, knowing that we would keep heaping it upon him even after he did it. Not in myself. Not in my spiritual disciplines. Not in the five points to becoming a better fill in the blank.
So I’m a failure. But that just means that I need to bring my sorry, failure self back to the cross on a daily basis, knowing that the One who died there waits for me, completely accepts me, and will carry me through my failures to a future that I cannot perceive.
Amen. Christ have mercy.