I posted a status on my Facebook
last night about a tendency I have to preach in the shower. Yes, that makes me kind of a dork, but it’s
absolutely 100% true! There is this well-known,
and often joked about truth out there that all deep thought and life reflection
happens in the shower. This is mostly
true for me as that tends to be the only place where I’m completely alone with
no distractions.
Thus, the shower sermons are born
out of my reflections on life. I fervently preach them to my audience of
shampoo, shower head, and suds as if I were speaking to a church full of people.
Last night I was thinking about
grace and how I am ever learning more about it as time goes on, and the fact
that it never ceases to surprise and amaze me, as it ignites more passion right
when I thought I had reached maximum passion levels. In that moment I was reminded of a common
question asked again of me recently:
“Why do you believe in such radical grace?”
The answer is simple really. I believe in it because I tried everything else and it didn’t work.
I tried living up to religion’s
standards and it made me a failure.
I tried living without rules or
morality and it made me empty.
I tried making people happy and it
made me a liar.
I tried pleasing only myself and
it made me an addict.
Then I tried grace and grace made
me enough.
Grace made me perfect.
Grace made me loved.
Grace made me free.
Grace made me RIGHTEOUS!
Everything else in this world,
every other path it has to offer, even those paved with religion, do nothing
but destroy us from inside out. I know
because I’ve walked them. They destroy
us and then try to convince us that this new road, this unknown narrow road
called grace, will do the same to us if we venture down it. So we cower away. We dare not take the chance of trading one
broken road for another so we just sit there in our brokenness and cry about
how much it hurts. I know because I’ve
done that.
And we miss out on the glory of
grace for the fear of failure, the agony of emptiness, or the possibility of
pain.
We sit there and we see others who live radically and we ask them, “Why, why do you believe what you do.” But really what we mean is, “How? How do you believe it?”
And for that question I don’t really know if there is an answer.
We sit there and we see others who live radically and we ask them, “Why, why do you believe what you do.” But really what we mean is, “How? How do you believe it?”
And for that question I don’t really know if there is an answer.
I don’t think there is always an
instruction booklet when it comes to life, and definitely not when it comes to
belief. Sometimes you just have to go
off script, ditch the recipe, and jump off the cliff. Most times that jump is absolutely
terrifying, so we try to stop the fall.
We grasp desperately for something along the side of the cliff to slow
our decent into uncertainty. Soon we
discover that nothing holds us as we look down to bloody knuckles, burned
palms, and dust between our fingers.
We say, “God look what you did to my hands! I knew I shouldn’t have jumped!”
See when you resist grace, when
you live a life contrary to it, attempting to be good enough on your own, all
you can find is brokenness. Brokenness
not as a result of God’s wrath but of our efforts.
Our efforts that amount to nothing
but emptiness, failure, pain, loneliness, and everything we are trying so desperately
to avoid. Our efforts that, at the end
of the day, just leave us grasping at dust.
I have a secret to tell you. A mystery to reveal, as Paul calls it.
I know what’s at the end of the fall.
I know what’s at the end of the fall.
Want to know what it is?
Love. Joy. Contentment. Acceptance.
Healing. Righteousness. Peace. Holiness. Adoption. Friendship. Wholeness.
Freedom. Kindness. Unbelievable favor. Oneness with the Creator of the
universe. Perfection. Forgiveness. Jesus. Every single positive thing you’ve ever craved
from another person, it’s there, He has it, and it’s yours! All waiting for you. At the end of the fall.
How? How do you believe it?
Just jump.
It’s that simple and that complex.
Jump first. Fear later.
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