Church Can Still Be Cool

I have really been feeling the urge to write lately.  Not sure why or about what, but I had a few moments and figured I would give it a go.

There is a line in a Dave Crowder Band lyric that goes, “I think I’m on the break of something large, maybe like the breaking of a dawn…” I have been consumed as of late with a similar feeling.  I just feel like there is more right beyond my grasp, and I desperately want to take hold of it.

So what’s holding me back?  I think the writer of the book of Hebrews called it “the sin that so easily entangles” and I hate it.  I just hate that you can take so caution and care to avoid falling into catastrophic moral failure, only to have the devil sneak up and kick you from behind with something that can seem totally innocuous and innocent and you still end up feeling broken and heavy and separated from the One who loves you.  It just seems like it is so tough to gain any momentum on your faith journey, you know?

I’m sick of it.

I want more.  I want to recapture the pure ecstasy and joy of my first days with Him.  I want to look at the scripture and notice little nuances that I have skipped over in the past but that change my whole understanding of who He is and how much He loves me.  I want to see him around every bend without being jaded or cynical or skeptical.  I want my heart to overflow with compassion and mercy and I want to be motivated by a blinding love of the One who calls me so much that reflection of Him is reflex.  What happened?  Why can’t I find that?

The best I can come up with is that I think I have forgotten that it isn’t about me finding it.  It is about getting back to a place where it can once again find me.

That same song by Crowder goes on to say, “letting go gives a better grip”.  I know.  It didn’t make sense to me either at first.  But did the stories of Christ really ever make sense to the original hearers, or were people more often left scratching their head and seeking for deeper meaning?

Here is the best I can come up with.  When I first came to Him, I was so keenly aware of my total inability to deserve His love that I never tried to prove to Him that I was good enough.  I just sat honestly about my fallenness and brokenness and allowed him to pour out grace beyond my wildest imagination.  In short, I was willing to admit I needed saving and let Him be the savior.  And then somewhere along the way, I got it all backwards.

So much of my pursuit of Him lately has been focused on behavior.  I certainly don’t want to suggest that Christ doesn’t care about my behavior, as I know He does deeply.  I know He desires more than anything for me to “live a life worthy of the calling that I have recieved,” but I also know that it can’t be about me living out some set of rules and actions that I have deemed good enough.  Heck, he spent most of His public ministry speaking against people who did that.  He isn’t looking for me to be able to perform, but rather for me to admit that I need Him.

See, I have to come back to terms with the truth that I need Him just as much now as I ever have.  I need to realize that even right now, on my best day, I am broken and flawed and imperfect.  I need to know that I don’t have to get good to go to Him… I can just go to Him, and He will make me good in the way He sees fit.  I need a savior.

And so, I begin 2010 with a decision to let go… to let go of control, to let go of a need to perform, to let go of self loathing, and I hope that in doing so I will get a better grip on just how much He loves me.

I close with the lines from another of my favorite songs, this one by Jennifer Knapp, “I’m weak, I’m poor, I’m broken, LORD, but I’m yours.”