Unashamed

Wow, I haven't updated this blog in a while - it's been about a week since I got back from the east coast. I've needed a lot of time to process my summer and what God has been teaching me. This summer He placed me in a wilderness where I was surrounded by interns of various faiths and backgrounds. At first I saw a lot of good come out of it, but God soon showed me what could happen to an imperfect community that was not centered on Him. Even though this was a community where I found a lot of vulnerability, openness, and friendship, I also found that a lot of brokenness was revealed in the relationships between us interns - a great deal of hurt and personal agendas and unwholesome thoughts, actions, and ideas.

This summer I saw how weak my faith is and how much I value my own comfort above anything else. I saw how quickly and easily I gave into temptation and peer pressure to feel included - to feel like I had a place where I belonged. And when I saw all of the brokenness I helped to create materialize, I cut off my ties with that community instead of being a part of it and transforming it from within. Through this God uncovered a lot of the nastiness within me, showing me just how much I talk the talk yet don't walk the walk. Through my actions and responses, He showed me just how much of a coward and flake I am.

And yet He still says, "Come as you are."

One thing that I've been struggling with since getting back has been my inability to fully accept God's freely-given love. He's been revealing to me how I don't have to earn His love and grace - that His unconditional love is, as crazy as it sounds, unconditional. God's telling me that all the things I've been through, all of the sins that I've committed against Him, all of the imperfections of my heart, and all of the decisions that I've made in the past don't matter because He wants all of me. Love is given without any consideration to how much I've earned or deserved it, but simply because I am His beloved. And I just think it's too good to be true.

After reflecting long and hard about it, I think that part of me is so unhappy about accepting a love that I've done absolutely nothing to deserve (I'm task-oriented!), and I feel so bitter that there's nothing I can or will be able to do to control the amount of love and grace I'll ever receive. I don't deserve God's love and there's nothing that I can do to change that. I see how arrogance and pride emerge from the deep confines of my heart, and it shows just how imperfect I am. It speaks volumes about how much I actually need that love.

Lord, I pray against believing these lies that tell me love and grace can and should be earned by my own right. I lay down my pride and selfishness to You, and I pray that You'll take it all and change my heart to be like Yours. I am an imperfect human following a perfect God and You take me as I am. I pray that You'll make it so that it won't simply be a thought, theory, or piece of head-knowledge, but an actual way of how I live my life. Lord, as time goes on, I pray that I'll be able to fully and unashamedly embrace my identity as Your beloved - that I'll be able to receive a love that I don't deserve, be transformed by it, and live a life of worship to the One Triune God who does deserve it. Let these things happen when You see fit, and I pray that You'll place in me a spirit of patience, attentiveness, and dependence on You.

God, You are so good and I can't say it enough. I can only try to be patient because You are so patient with me, and I can only love You so much because You loved me first. I just thank You for being so faithful time and time again.