Sometimes, I wait to post on here until my thoughts are very clearly stated. I wait until I've read and re-read at least three times. I make sure it's polished.
Not today.
Today, I've just gotta say this. and I hope it makes sense. I pray it makes sense.
Normally, I would give a whole bunch of background to give you an idea of where these thoughts are originating from.
Not today.
Today, there's no need.
My theology has changed pretty drastically in the last several years. Not the fundamentals of what it means to walk with Jesus. No, not that. I fully believe the Bible is God-breathed and absolute truth. I believe God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins so that we might have eternal life.
My people theology has changed.
I lived for a long long time in a perfect little bubble. I said all the right things, attended church every Sunday, and had church-y friends.
Cussing, drinking, smoking, partying?
Yeah no.
and God forbid you had a tattoo anywhere on your body.
I did not associate myself with people of that nature.
and then God flipped my world upside down.
I stepped outside of the dangerous cliche, and starting really living with people.
People that partied hard on the weekends, people that don't blink an eye using four letter words, people with full sleeves of tattoos.
and I began to realize that we have something really beautiful in common.
I am fully loved and fully known.
and every single other person on this planet is fully loved and fully known.
Whether you're crazy conservative or crazy charismatic, you are so loved.
Here's the thing: you don't have to be "good".
I mean it.
You don't have to read through your Bible in 365 days. You don't have to keep a journal, join the prayer team, or volunteer in the kid's hall on Sundays.
Honestly, guys, no one has it all together. At the end of the day, we're just thousands and thousands of beating hearts, broken and torn made whole only by His love.
We get to take grace like a garment. But it's not equivalent to a girl scout vest. No patches to earn, no glittery gold pendants to pin on.
You can take a hold of grace, and know that it is pure. No embellishments needed. You don't have to dress it up or bedazzle it or tie-dye it in the backyard.
It is enough, all by itself, to cover shame and fear and death.
You don't have to listen to "christian" music or read "christian" fiction or answer all the questions in your fill-in-the-blank Bible study.
You don't have to buy a juicer, eat organically, buy fair trade, or go to the other side of the world on a mission's trip. You don't have to adopt from a third world country, or go to medical school.
You don't have to listen to sermons on your iPhone while you drive. You don't have to read the "right" books" or support the "right" political candidates.
You don't even need a Jesus fish sticker on your car!
Prayer is deeply beautiful, and I love communicating with God. But dear friends, if you pray, let it be because your heart is drawn to the heart of God. There isn't a script, there's no magic words. You don't have to get up early and kneel on the floor by your bed. There's no formula.
If you want to get up and pray in the morning, do it! There is something special there for you in the quiet. But if you can't- if you are beyond sleepy, if you push snooze again- you are not any less beloved. There is no grand, cosmic head-shaking going on in the sky.
God is near when you push snooze and pull the sheets up around you. and He's near when you hop up and kneel next to the bed, too.
He covers you with the quiet of His love. wherever you are.
When you choose to acknowledge the sweet presence of Christ, know this: you cannot stifle His light with your darkness. You cannot possibly diminish it with your disobedience or diffuse it with your doubt.
If you were to never read another Bible verse in your whole life, you will be loved just as endlessly, just as wildly, just as inexhaustibly.
If you never step into a church building again, if you never join another Bible study, if you never sing another worship song... you are still enough. Because He is enough. Because nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. not even your own broken heart.
There will surely come a time when Jesus knocks, drawing you to Himself and calling you out of cynicism and fear. and oh my goodness, I sincerely hope you open the door and say "YES" to everything He has for you.
But maybe you don't. Maybe over and over and over again, you say no. or "not yet." Maybe you are stubborn, choosing to take the long way around. Maybe you get on a ship headed in the total opposite direction.
EVEN STILL, you cannot outrun His love and His grace. It's bigger than the sky, closer than your ragged breath.
What I'm trying to say is this: life with Jesus isn't some weird scientific equation.
good behavior + prayer = God's love or God's presence or God's blessing.
At the end of the day, the good news of the Gospel is a shattering of all formulas. It is a God who walks through dirt and grime, whose Love is big enough to cover the broken, empty places of the whole wide world. Whose goodness is strong enough to cover every failure.
It is a God who died to defeat death to give us life, and you don't have to be anyone's definition of "good."
You just have to step into it.
Step into His goodness and His grace and His love.
And before some of you go and get your knickers in a twist, let me just say this: I KNOW this is a touchy subject. I'm not claiming to know everything. There is a ton of variables involved, and I recognize that. Sin is sin.
But it's desperately time that we begin to meet people where they're at.
When I decided to do that very thing, and check my standards for "what-it-means-to-be-a-good-christian" at the door... I started to really embrace the freedom that comes from life with Jesus.
Do you want the hard, honest truth?
I love Jesus.
I also love a good martini or a spiked lemonade.
I don't smoke, but honestly that's because I don't want to die of lung cancer. It's the nursing student in me.
I have said "shit" and "damn" multiple times. like a lot of multiple times.
I seriously appreciate the artistry of tattoos, and I have jokingly asked God multiple times to have me marry a man with at least one.
I have piercings. No crazy, off-the-wall ones (although my mother did have a mini heart-attack when I got my second cartilage piercing). and guess what? I have dear friends (who I love to death) with belly button/lip/nipple/nose piercings.
Did I mention I love Jesus??
I do. Oh, I love Jesus so much.
With my whole heart and my whole life.
and He loves me too.
