Shattered Glass and Plastic Cups

This week has been a crazy week in the Jess world!  Many changes and opportunities have kept me on my toes along with some heaviness for a few people that I love.  One such person at the top of my love list has faced fire this week. 

He works in a place where the system of doing more to earn more reigns supreme which makes things tough for Gracers like us.  A couple nights ago we talked about his struggles in that system.  When you live in a word driven by performance there really can’t be an absolute truth.  See, because your worth is determined by who is judging your performance.  One person might think jumping three feet is good enough while another thinks really you should be jumping six.  The standard is set by others around you and is constantly changing with every person you come in contact with. 

Another thing about living this way is the inability to be real with anyone.  If your worth is determined by how successful you are then you can never admit your failures because then you lose your worth.  It’s sad really, you see people clinging to the facade of perfection when everyone knows it’s just not possible in the real world. 

That system also misses out on the innovators.  Innovators push the box, get outside comfort zones, and make mistakes on their way to learning new ways to be effective.  In a world structured in performance innovators are hidden, squashed, and forced to conform. 

I grew up in this system and (shocker) I didn’t fit the mold.  I pushed boundaries, colored outside the lines, doubted, and asked difficult questions.  So I was told I wasn’t good enough.  Let’s face it; I wasn’t.  Not for that system.  I never will be and thank God for that! 

Jesus was born into that system too.  He spent his life breaking the rules, crossing lines, answering the doubters, and embracing the broken.  Jesus was about being real.  He didn’t tell the prostitutes, tax collectors, and zealots to get their lives together before he hung out with them.  No, he came to them and his overwhelming love changed their lives.  Then he did something that no list of rules, no Christian duties, nor works of the law, could ever do.  He died and covered ALL sins.  Not just yesterday's, not just today's, but tomorrow's and next year’s sins too. 

Now my worth is determined not by what I do but what has been DONE for me.  I live a life a liberty.  I am surrounded by people who live in liberty as well.  If you come hang around with us you will find innovators trying to find new ways to relate to others and embrace grace.  You will find people not afraid to ask the difficult questions even if there are no answers.  You will find broken people being embraced and doubters being answered. 

We are admittedly a rag tag band filled with religion junkies, strippers, former actual junkies, divorcees, rebels turned into revolutionaries, and tattooed recovering alcoholics like me.  Despite our broken lives Christ makes us whole without a scratch to make us any less than priceless.  So my challenge to you is to be a broken glass that is made faultless again by the excessive love of Christ rather than a plastic cup which, though impossible to shatter, really isn’t worth much.  Let yourself shatter.