Guilt Trips

The record I like to spin the most is called, "The Ways Katie Lets God Down." Have you ever heard that one? It's got some jams on it, including:
1. Katie should know better by now but still makes the same mistakes.
2. Katie gets arrogant when something good happens and only comes to God when life is raining.
3. Katie makes God look horrible by telling everyone she's a Christian and then wrecking everything she touches.
4. Katie wrestles with the simplest elements of faith and will never be a good enough Christian.

It's an album I'm really familliar with, but lately it's getting harder to play it. Lately, as I've started to explore my shame with God, I've started to think that maybe God sees my shame and desire to beat myself into submission with guilt different than I do. Maybe if I asked him what he thought, he'd say:

"What if you struck yourself in the head with a chain every time you felt guilty or ashamed for letting me down? What if you physically punished yourself every time you were not perfect? What if the self abuse was physical and external, instead of mental and internal? Would the scars cry for help? Would the pain you were causing yourself seem cruel and unnecessary? Would your heart break if you watched that person? This is what I see when I watch you, Katie.

My daughter, my daughter, who told you that the crucifixion was not over?"

Saying the word crucifixion is one of those Christian words that kind of make you look odd. You'll never hear a rapper at the Grammys or an athlete throwing out a verbal high five to God say, "Big shout out to God. Thank you for the crucifixion of Christ."

I never realized that by beating myself up, I was putting on a parade of pain before the Lord as a way to enter his presence. And I never really thought about that hurting him. Not because he's disappointed, but because he loves me. Madly, passionately, unabashedly, he loves us.

-Jon Acuff

You are not naked.

This is an excerpt from the book "Stuff Christians Like" by Jon Acuff. It's a great book; I highly recommend it! This is one of the more serious entries. Most of the other chapters are satirical, and have to do with dumb things that Christians do. Go read it :)


"Sometimes the cuts are real, like the day my five-year-old got a scrape on her face playing in the front yard. I rushed into the house and returned with a princess bandage. As I bent down to apply it to her forehead, her eyes filled up with tears and she shrank back from me.
'What's wrong?' I asked.
'I don't want to wear that Band-Aid,' she replied.
'Why? You have a cute, you need a Band-Aid,' I said.
'I'll look silly,' she answered..
Other than her sister and her mom, there was no one else in the yard. None of her friends were over, cars were not streaming past our house and watching us play, the world was pretty empty at that moment. But for the first time i can remember, she felt shame. She had discovered shame. Somewhere, somehow, this little five-year-old girl had learned to be afraid of looking silly. If I were smarter, if I had been better prepared for the transition from little toddler to little girl, I might have asked her this: 'Who told you that you were silly?' I didn't though. That question didn't bloom in my head until much later, and I didn't understand it until I saw God ask a similar question in Genesis 3:11. To me, this is one of the saddest and most profoundly beautiful verses in the entire Bible. Adam and Eve have fallen. The apple is a core. The snake has spoken. The dream appears crushed. As they hide from God under clothes they've hastily sewn together, he apppears and asks them a simple question:

'Who told you that you were naked?'

There is hurt in God's voice as he asks this question, but there is also a deep sadness, the sense of a father holding a daughter that has, for the first time ever, wrapped herself in shame.
Who told you that you were not enough?
Who told you that I didn't love you?
Who told you that there was something outside of me you needed?
Who told you that you were ugly?
Who told you that your dream was foolish?
Who told you that you'll never know love again?
Who told you that this was all there is?
Who told you that you were naked?

I don't know when you discovered shame. I don't know when you discovered that there were people who might think you are silly or dumb or not a good friend. I don't know what lies you've been told by other people or maybe even by yourself. But in response to what you are hearing from everyone else, God is still asking the same question, 'Who told you that you were naked?"
And he's still asking us that question because we are not.
In Christ we are not worthless.
In Christ we are not hopeless.
In Christ we are not dumb or ugly or forgotten.
In Christ we are not naked.
In Isaiah 61:10 it says, 'For he has clothes me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.'"


I love that part of the book.
The world may try to tell you a thousand different things today. You might close this blog and hear a million declaratioins of what you are or who you'll always be, but know this.
You are not naked.

Estonia Excitement!

http://www.2012.ee/client/default.asp?wa_id=1&wa_object_id=1&wa_id_key=

Here's the link to the Heartbeat Estonia page! This is what will be happening the last week I'm in Estonia. There's going to be so much going on! I'm so excited. SO excited! I can't believe this is all happening so quickly!! This is crazy. I'm so blessed. What an awesome life I have.