If you’ve never gone down an endless trail on the internet,
just go ahead and close this window. Today, I ended up on one of my favorite
sites for worship videos, The Work of the People, and watched several of their
Lenten videos. One of the new ones, Surrender,
really resonated with me.
The video includes a number of speakers sharing their
insights on this concept of surrendering. I don’t mean giving up in the midst
of battle. I mean surrendering who you thought you were to who you were created
to be.
What hit me was the connection between our origins – we are each uniquely, lovingly created by God – and our tendency to manufacture an identity based on what we perceive society expects from us. I’m pretty sure there is a big gap between the two. I know there is for me.
As a young person, a child, I guess I understood at some
level that God loves me. But, as I got older, I bought into the idea that I had
all kinds of gifts and skills that would enable me to be successful, admired,
and respected. I did well. I got the college degree. I got the career that
brought me accolades and a steady stream of spending money. We had a nice
house, new cars, and didn’t have to nickel and dime our way through the grocery
store. Life was good. I had arrived.
Without going into all the details, let me just say that I
landed at a place where all of that fell away. The forever and ever amen
marriage didn’t survive. The bank wanted the vehicles and had their eye on the
house (say what you want about mortgage reforms, but I say thank you). Every
single thing that I had built my life on – my dreams, my desires, my work, my
achievement – all of it, fell apart.
Maybe you can’t surrender until you get to that ugly low
point. What really hit me today, though, was the way we – you and I –
internalize all of this. Again, you may not be like me, but I can certainly
play through a whole litany of negative messages about myself. Not getting
along with someone? Must be something wrong with me. Not feeling happy and
joyful? Must be something lacking in me. The list, the endless list, goes on
and on and on….
And yet…God created me. Knit me together in my mother’s
womb, according to the psalmist (Psalm 139). Stamped me with God’s image,
breathed into me the breath of life and declared that I was “very good.”
According to our scriptures – and more importantly in my mind, according to the
character of God portrayed in our scriptures – God takes great delight in you
and me. God loves us, without condition, regardless of what the world says,
regardless of what we’ve done or not done. Regardless. Unconditionally, Without
us having to do one single thing to earn it.
If God pours all of that on us, if God looks upon us with
such love, such desire…who, then, are we to discount what God has created and
loved? Today, anyway, I believe that I dishonor my creator when I listen to all
those negative messages. If God loves me and has created me in God’s image,
declared me “very good” (Genesis 1 or 2 – look it up) – what right do I have,
as God’s created, to argue, to say “oh no, God, you messed up with me?”
I have no idea what kind of negative messages play in your
head. I only know mine and they have the potential to be very powerful. Today,
I choose to let them go. I choose to accept who I am in light of who created
me. I don’t think it will change the world or end global poverty. But, by God,
I believe it will equip me to live more fully, more joyfully, more abundantly
into the life I was created to live. The same is true for you, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment