“Cross Jesus one too many times, fail too often, sin too much, and God will decide to take his love back. It is so bizarre, because I know Christ loves me, but I’m not sure he likes me, and I continually worry that God’s love will simply wear out.
Periodically, I have to be slapped in the face with Paul’s words in Romans 8:38-39, ‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’“
I admit I live with a continuous fear that God’s love has limits. That someday, I will sin myself beyond a Savior’s reach. It nags on me and betrays me. The fear that I will end up on some spiritual “junk heap” is real, and it is pervasive. I guess it has to do with the unbelievable richness of God’s fantastic grace.
This doubt accentuates my depression, aggravating it and poisons my whole being. I feel worthless and so alone. Since my particular struggle is with paranoia, I end up bringing that with me into the throne room. Kids who have been beaten by their fathers often visibly flinch when Dad raises his arm to scratch his head. They cower and duck out of habit, waiting for the blows.
Our heavenly Father has gone out of his way to make the gospel truly good news. We often have to be convinced of a love that cannot be diluted by the stuff of life. And we who are the wounded and paranoid need that assurance. We are loved with a love of such quality and quantity, and such magnificence that all we can scream is “GRACE!”
As broken people we must come and allow ourselves to be loved with this outrageous love. Our depression, bipolar disorder, addictions, BPD, OCD, and schizophrenia are not insurmountable issues. We are sick, we admit it. We are different than other people (“the norms”). But the Father delights in us.
He especially loves his lambs who are weak and frightened.
I’m really sad today. There are just too much hurts, too many casualties, too many victims. Job’s own reflection was that “man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward” [not really sure I know what the last part means, but the first part is perfectly clear].
We are all citizens of this fallen world. It seems we go through life like a bull in a china shop.We don’t move very gracefully and we break a lot of things just trying to move through it. No matter how hard we try we always make a mess of it. I’d like to think of it as moving through life sideways. We go through life crashing and smashing.
There is no place in the Bible where God promises us a “trouble-free” journey to heaven, a journey without pains, hassles and the problems of life. If you are hearing anything else, I strongly suggest finding another voice to listen to.
“Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives.”
— Michael Yaconelli
We all have flawed lives. Everything gets tangled up and really messy. This is the normal life of being in ministry of some kind.
Our very best efforts give us little hope at resolving these things. We are agitated by our personal failure and we often feel God is angry with us. The really hard part is the incessant voices from the sidelines that announce our failures and flaws to everyone. Satan has a cruel and a vicious ministry of hate targeted at you.
Yet these terrible things are redeemed by the Holy Spirit. He loves failures and weaklings. When we finally realize we are flawed, he then places something real into our hearts. In our weakness we finally become strong. We become authentic. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”(Matthew 5:4).
Be kind to everyone today, to each person you meet. For all of us are fighting a difficult battle. Please, be kind out there.
“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Genesis 1:27
“Christianity is not about learning how to live within the lines; Christianity is about the joy of coloring.”
— Mike Yaconelli (Dangerous Wonder)
I know that this is not Bible, I have thought a lot about this and I can see no direct biblical correlation. But my topical Bible lists dozens of occupations requiring giftedness. And I know deep down that our Father is full of creativity. He has done things that are exceptionally innovative, he reveals imagination in everything he has created. Think about a butterfly, or the color purple, or, wonder about a giraffe. And your house cat is a work of intense beauty and motion that rivals anything found in the Louvre.
When we first begin to color with crayons, we are told that we must color in the boundaries. Our picture will get taped up on the classroom wall if we can manage this feat. We become aware that this ability is extrapolated into the different areas of living life. The desire to be accepted and appreciated squashes anything creative we might do.
Perhaps, these issues that involve us being creative, do need to be stifled or shut down. I suppose we could make a case out of this. We definitely as believers should avoid these theatrics, and conform into a homogeneous place of acceptability. The Japanese have a phrase, “The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.” But I wonder, why then do we desire to create and imagine things? Why do I want to write, paint, dance, sculpt, sing, and play the guitar?
Each of us carries a deep sense of aesthetics or what is beautiful. We instantly understand beauty when we see it. We stand in front of a Van Gogh in a museum, or before Michelangelo’s’ statue of David. They collectively undo us. We step back and take a deep breath. One becomes gentle in the face of such wonder and beauty. And after all, we create really for “an audience of One.”
Dance of the Joyful Bride
We were built for creativity and beauty. It is part of our DNA. It also means that we have been created in God’s image. When we pick up our crayons, we are revealing his presence. When we color, our Father notes what we have done. Some may see a scrawling. But they honestly do not matter. The Father completely understands and is thrilled.
“It’s like you come onto this planet with a crayon box. Now, you may get the 8-pak, or you may get the 16-pak, but it’s all in what you do with the crayons–the colors– that you’re given. Now don’t worry about coloring inside the lines or outside the lines. I say, color outside the lines! Color right off the page!”
Waking Life
I’m of the firm opinion that we need to communicate to our children the wonderful gift of being creative. We must release them, to imagine and be inspired. We need to encourage them to use their crayons, even if they color outside the lines.
“Messy Spirituality:” A Book Excerpt by Mike Yaconelli
“For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a godly person. Yet when I look at the yesterdays of my life, what I see, mostly, is a broken, irregular path littered with mistakes and failure. I have had temporary successes and isolated moments of closeness to God, but I long for the continuing presence of Jesus.
Most of the moments of my life seem hopelessly tangled in a web of obligations and distractions. I want to be a good person. I don’t want to fail. I want to learn from my mistakes, rid myself of distractions, and run into the arms of Jesus. Most of the time, however, I feel like I am running away from Jesus into the arms of my own clutteredness. I want desperately to know God better. I want to be consistent. Right now the only consistency in my life is my inconsistency. Who I want to be and who I am are not very close together. I am not doing well at the ‘living-a-consistent-life’ thing.
I don’t want to be St. John of the Cross or Billy Graham. I just want to be remembered as a person who loved God, who served others more than he served himself, who was trying to grow in maturity and stability. I want to have more victories than defeats, yet here I am, almost 60, and I fail on a regular basis.
If I were to die today, I would be nervous about what people would say at my funeral. I would be happy if they said things like “He was a nice guy” or “He was occasionally decent” or “Mike wasn’t as bad as a lot of people. ”Unfortunately, eulogies are delivered by people who know the deceased. I know what the consensus would be.“Mike was a mess.”
You might say Christianity has a tradition of messy spirituality. Messy prophets, messy kings, messy disciples, messy apostles. From God’s people getting in one mess after another in the Old Testament to most of the New Testament’s being written to straighten out messes in the church, the Bible presents a glorious story of a very messy faith. Sounds like you and I are in good company.
A few years ago, I was introduced to a group of uncouth Christians who call themselves “the Notorious Sinners.” These are men from all walks of life who meet once a year to openly share their messy spirituality with each other. The title ‘Notorious Sinners’ refers to the scandalous category of forgiven sinners whose reputations and ongoing flaws didn’t seem to keep Jesus away.
In fact, Jesus had a habit of collecting disreputables; he called them disciples. He still does. I like people who openly admit their ‘notoriousness’—people who unabashedly confess they are hopelessly flawed and hopelessly forgiven. Graciously, these men invited me to be a part of their group. The ‘Notorious Sinners’ meet yearly at spiritual-retreat centers, where from the moment we arrive, we find ourselves in trouble with the centers’ leadership.
We don’t act like most contemplatives who come to spiritual-retreat centers— reserved, quiet, silently seeking the voice of God. We’re a different kind of contemplative— earthy, boisterous, noisy, and rowdy, tromping around our souls, seeking God, hanging out with a rambunctious Jesus who is looking for a good time in our hearts.
A number of us smoke cigars, about half are recovering alcoholics, and a couple of the men could embarrass a sailor with their language. Two of the ‘Notorious Sinners’ show up on their Harleys, complete with leather pants and leather jackets. I admit I run with a rough crowd—Christians whose discipleship is blatantly real and carelessly passionate, characterized by a brazen godliness. Unafraid to admit their flaws, unintimidated by Christians who deny their own messiness, these guys sometimes look like pagans and other times look like Jesus.
They are spiritual troublemakers, really, which is why they look like Jesus (who was always causing trouble himself ). They are full of mischief, laughter, and boisterous behavior, which is why they look like pagans. Truly messy disciples. The ‘Notorious Sinners’ are definitely a bizarre mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly, living a spirituality which defies simple definitions.
Oh, and they are some of the most spiritual men I know.”
___________________________
Messy Spirituality [Book] by Michael Yaconelli, Karla Yaconelli in Books
By Michael Yaconelli, Mike Yaconelli, Karla Yaconelli – Zondervan (2007) – Paperback -192 pages-ISBN 0310277302
I Guess I’m Not a Very Good Christian . . . Do you feel like: I don’t pray enough I don’t read my Bible enough I don’t share my faith enough I don’t love God enough I’m not committed enough I’m not spiritual enough Then this book is for you.
Messy Spirituality was written for the silent majority of us who have been convinced that we just don’t do Christianity right. We spend most of our lives worried about what we don’t do instead of what we have done, focused on our imperfections instead of God’s fondness for the imperfect. Why?
Because we’ve been bombarded with books, tapes, talks, seminars, and movies convincing us that real Christianity is all about perfection. Michael Yaconelli dares to suggest that imperfection, infiniteness, and messiness are, in fact, the earmarks of true Christianity; that real Christianity is messy, erratic, lopsided . . . and gloriously liberating.
What if genuine faith begins with admitting we will never have our act completely together? Maybe messy disciples are exactly the kind of imperfect people Jesus came to earth for and whose company he actually enjoyed–and still enjoys.
If you want to find Jesus today, look for him in the midst of burned-out believers, moral misfits, religious incompetents . . . men and women whose lives are, well, messy.
Messy Spirituality is a strong antidote for the spiritual perfectionism in us all. Here are truths that can cut you loose from the tyranny of ought-to’s and open your eyes to the deep spirituality of being loved, shortcomings and all, by the God who meets you and transforms you in the midst of a messy and unpredictable life.
Broken Believers 