impossible

i've been doing a lot of thinking lately about this idea of falling short. Mainly becuase I keep doing it. I mean, there is just a lot of stuff in life that I realize I am bad at-- selflessnes, love, sacrifice, stopping eating when I don't need anything else, spending money, giving money, giving in general, being devoted, actually having the desire to do things I know are the best way to live.

And I've been thinking a lot about what this Chirstian label that we stick on ourselves after we pray a certain prayer means. It seems like more often that not I fall into this rut of thinking that it creates this sort of us-against-them perogative, where "we" know the answers, and "they" are just unwashed miscreants. But honestly, I seem to be doing just about as crappy of job of being the right kind of person when I try to do it with just the stuff I was born with.

Worry. Thats another thing. I've been thinking about worrying a lot lately and how when I worry, its like instant distance between Abba and I. Wouldn't a faith in some big-time creator change the importance of a lot of things?

What does my life look like in light of this all-transforming God? Can people see this is me? In me, no. Thats the thing. I think so often, we look at our nametag and once we realize it says, "Christian," wherever that label even came from, we think we suddenly have to start living up to it,like we suddenly have to earn it. That's when everything gets out of whack. I love how Peterson paraphrases the end of Matthew 6 in The Message. The passage is already about not worrying and allowing God to live his kind of life in you, and he says, "Look at the birds, not tied down by a job description." How often do we become so tied down by our job description?

I was talking to someone tonight about how she is so disillusioned by this so called God-love. She just wanted to know if God's love we real, why she has never really seen or experienced it. And as she was talking, two things were running through my mind: 1) I really suck. and 2) I have no idea. That's the thing. I know that God's love is real becuase I have experienced it, but how have I failed in this person's life and how do I end this cycle of non-healing that has been going on in my own life. I don't have the answers for this person. And I've failed her in that respect that she hasn't seen that in me if in fact, I have experienced this so called transforming love.

But thats the beauty of grace. Its not really my job to have the answers for her and God knows that I'm just a little girl and I'm incapable of loving the way I was intended to love. God knows that he has me in a process and someday I'll get better, but wearing the "christian" nametag doesn't make me perfect, nor does it give me any right to claim to be good at life. In fact, it gives me even less right to claim such a thing because claiming such a label means I've admitted that I'm no good at living right apart from God's power living in me. I mean, honestly, I'm not even good at either admitting it or really living off of the unlimited power God supplies.

But God is gracious. He knows. He is the one claiming the credit and so he is also the one doing the work. These are just some of the questions I've been thinking about, wanting to put out there:

If God's love is so transforming, how are there entire people out there who have never actually seen it?

How am I being a part of this wounding rather than the healing?

How come as christians, we can often be the most uptight, the most graceless of all?

Could it have anything to do with this constant concern of keeping up this name that we have forgotten what sort of humbling or actions are actually the foundation of the name?

Lastly, I've been thinking about this question especially with "my Jeruselem," that is, the people living closest to me: Have I earned the right to share with people the hope I claim to have for thier lives?