Greetings All,
This week's 'thought' comes from a book I picked up at a local "bargain basement" for a couple bucks. It's by
a lady named Tammy Maltby, and is entitled: "Confessions of a Good Christian Girl -- The Secrets Women Keep and the Grace that Saves Them." It caught my attention because as I skimmed through it I found that she was tremendously honest and transparent
and cut through a lot of the religious facades people put on to hide the reality of their human brokenness.
She speaks of how earnest ('good') Christian women stuggle to deal with
things like suicidal thoughts, sexual brokenness, family violence and
abuse, broken relationships,
divorce and addiction. And she offers good practical advice about the
grace which alone can heal it. In fact, it almost seems like a female
version of the book, "Red Like Blood" by Joe Coffey and Bob Bevington (which is also a very captivating and helpful read for the same reasons).
Although the book is addressed to women, the selection I chose can
apply across the board to anyone who has ever wrestled with a sense of
inadequacy, or what she calls feeling like we're "not enough" --
an inner sense that pushes us to the driven-type-behaviors we often use
(and even justify) in our attempts to mask our sense of lack, or make it
appear to outsiders like we're just plain good motivated people.
I hope you find it helpful. And if you do have a
Women's Study Group that wants to go through a book that helps you
to take a good, hard, honest look inside, and shoot for healing and
transformation instead of reverting to the common forms of religious
pretending, it might be a good book for you to look at. Enjoy.
"The
entire message of the Bible, as I see it, has to do with how God sees
us. And the Bible has both good news and bad news about that. The
truth is that were not enough -- because we're incomplete and imperfect
and weak. Because we're sinful and rebellious. Because we're supposed
to work together and we just can't get along. Because we need God
desperately and we forget that reality on an hourly basis. We're so
inadequate, in fact, that it's downright pitiful.
And that's the bad news... Because the truth is we will never be
enough. We're mortal. We have limited physical endurance and emotional
strength and intellectual capability. We're fallible and make mistakes.
We need help and encouragement. We feel inadequate, in other words,
because we are inadequate. God's made us that way. God
created us for relationship, to depend on one another. He gave us
different, complimentary gifts that are supposed to work together like
the parts of the body do (see I Cor. 12:12-31). He called us to love
each other, to support each other, to encourage each other, to carry
each other's burdens -- to be an interdependent community, not a
universe of independent superstars. And He calls us into fellowship
with Him too. It's part of our nature to feel restless and incomplete
if we're not
connecting to God and depending on Him. So in the economy of God, 'not
enough' is not really an issue. What is an issue is our skewed thinking
about who we are and what's expected of us -- when our 'not enough'
reality turns into frantic attempts at self-sufficiency...
But here's the good news -- and it's amazingly good. Even in the midst
of our inadequate, lying, sinning reality, God loves us passionately.
Tenderly. Enthusiastically. With a Father's care and tenderness. He
sees so much potential. He wants so much for us. For thousands of
years He's been pursuing us, making it possible for us to draw near to
Him. He even sent His Son to save us -- not because of our efforts, but
simply because we're His.
That's hard to understand, I know.
Believe me -- I know! I still struggle with my compulsive, workaholic
tendencies. I still wrestle with the pain my inadequacies cause me and
those I love. I'm still ashamed to be 'not enough,' and I keep bustling
around to rectify the situation when what I really need to be doing is
turning to Jesus...
Our inadequacies, our failures, our 'not enough' issues are simply
beside the point when it comes to the Father's love. Yes, He has His
standards. Yes, He wants to help us be more like Him. Yes, He has work
for us all to do, and I believe He delights in our hard work and
creativity when it's combined with obedience and honest truth. But even
if we never did a thing, our Father would still love us. He continues
to love us when we fail, when we run from Him, when our thinking is
skewed and our intentions are all
wrong. Even when we persist in thinking we can never be enough through
our own efforts.
We must sound so silly as we huff and puff and whine and wheeze and try
harder and harder and wallow in our worries. But if we let Him, He can
love us back to sanity. He'll give us rest. Even better, He'll give
us peace. Remember what He said to the woman with the issue of blood? He
told her to go in peace. He said the same thing to the Luke 7 woman,
the notorious sinner who annointed His feet with perfume. And I believe
that's His word to us... who try and try and still don't feel like we're
enough. That word of 'peace' means 'nothing missing, nothing broken.'
It means being whole, enough, sufficient. It means being able to
relax, not strive, because we're so confident that we're loved. It
means doing all
our work with a changed perception. An attitude of grateful, peaceful
confidence. Because we're His children. Because, to Him, we are never
anything less than beloved." 
As you enter each day, remember the words I often share from the pulpit: "As God's grace-adopted children, we work FROM acceptance, never FOR acceptance." And that little change makes a big difference! In fact, maybe a little daily reminder of her advice would be helpful as well: Begin
each day by reminding yourself: I can relax, not strive, because I know
I am loved. I am confident of His love. I am His child. And in Him, I am
never anything less than beloved.
To the further glory of His grace, Pastor Jeff
