If you think about it, church should be the one place you can completely be yourself – warts and all. After all, church is made up not of perfect people, but people who are (in theory) fully aware of their imperfections and the fact that they totally need a perfect Jesus. I think about the truth in the words: ‘Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.’ Like me – and you. Let’s be honest.
Someone has used the analogy before that church is like a hospital for a world affected deeply by sickness and pain. Yet so often it seems as though even the patients who – though they are in hospital – still proceed to hide their bandages, their wounds and their scars. Everyone appears to be fine; with the exception of one or two people who are unashamedly showing their wounds and scars. Everyone else attends to these people, making a spectacle of them as though they are somehow the anomalies.
The people I love the most in church are those who are honest and real about where they are, what they struggle with and what they’re really praying about. I wish I was more like them. In prayer meetings, they don’t necessarily pray , ‘I want more of You, Lord’ (not that this is a bad prayer, it’s an amazingly necessary one), but there are some days when really the prayers that are the most comforting are the ones that confess, ‘Father, being a Christian is actually really hard, I’m not doing a very good job right now and had I not spotted the pastor a few moments before, I would almost certainly have drop kicked the man who pushed in front of me in the queue. Please help me!’
Being honest about where you are and what you struggle with brings freedom not only to you, but also to others. How comforting it is to find out that people wrestle with the same issues that you do. When sharing your heart with others its amazing when you see how people begin to open up about the deep hurts they felt at the hands of others and the greatest thing in all of that, is the freedom all receive in just being open and honest.
Being open is not always easy and it isn’t necessarily something that comes naturally to me at least, but it is vital. So why don’t we always do it? Maybe it is the fear of what others might think of us. But ultimately, we’re only answerable to One Judge. With the same token, when we find time to judge the in’s and out’s of other people’s walks with God, it can indicate that we are not spending enough time soberly examining our own. (Philippians 2:12)
Moreover, when we hide our scars or ailments, we deny other people the opportunity to witness the fact that it is not by our own goodness we achieve anything, but by the grace of God. Of course, there is wisdom in knowing when, where and how to share these things; but the fact that there may be a correct place and time does not negate the fact that it is something that we should do.
I find it encouraging that the Bible is full of people who made mistakes, had character flaws and struggled with their siblings, spouses and children. Ultimately, no matter how good we think we are, we need Jesus just as much as the person we may look at and think that they seriously need Jesus. What’s more, maintaining the appearance of ‘having it all together’ doesn’t earn you any extra brownie points; if anything, it denies you the opportunity to address the wounds that you so desperately try to hide. There is a beauty and freedom in being open.
Written by Kazstarlet
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