Wrestling with God

Lately, I've become really bad with answering my phone. Which annoys people who can only call me or be called. So after probably a couple hundred attempts to call me, me and my friend worked out a time I could call her. A while into the conversation, she hit me with a question that really should have had an obvious answer; "Are you still a Christian?"

She was asking because many of her friends had begun to fall away.

My mind was trying to respond. That's what hit me. I had to think about that? I guess I was overtaken by the Peter Syndrome. No I didn't openly or publicly deny my Lord, but my body was so slow to admit there was One that ruled over it.

The truth is I felt ashamed. Ashamed to call Christ my Lord, because I have experienced his deep love and grace. But more personally, I have experienced my own failures. I have lived in the muck and mire of life, instead of in the joyous presence of being loved by a God whose grace knows no bounds. It's so easy to say we would not deny our Lord, not in the way Peter did. But every day we deny Him. I have selfish, heartless, downright evil desires.

Just so you know, I'm classifying 'evil' as anything contrary to God. Anything that tears at the fabric of my faith is evil, anything that elevates me above God is evil.

An authentic faith is something I want. A seat in the home of God is something I desire. But when such a simple question is asked, and our first thought is hesitance due to our sin, I think that's shifting the focus from my Almighty to my own atrocities. What then has become the lord of my life? A motivation of God-given grace? Or one of guilt?

Whats the focus? Because that is ultimately where we will end up.

There is more to this story though. There is a powerful redemption. We are all prodigal sons and daughters. And there is one far greater who desires that we allow Him to lift us from our grave, into his grace. Are we living as if we are filled with a living Christ? Or are we living as if He never rose, as if His body still lays in the tomb. I know my life has a mixture of both. Some days I live as if He is my everything. And then other days, I live as the crowd chanting "Crucify Him!"; as the soldiers taunting His body on the cross; as the disciples who fled Him in the Garden.

But while our God is completely filled with perfect love and grace, He is also one about commitment. And that is what we wrestle with each day. The chance comes to give Him glory, but what is our reply? Peter denied Him openly, and went on to lead a revival in His name. That is an amazing story of God's work in his life. Adam and Eve both denied Him through their loyalties, and all of creation is wrought with sorrow. How will my story be told? How will my faith make a difference? I need to soak myself in the endless rivers of God's grace, and quit trying the straight and narrow alone, because I am a child of an all-powerful, all-loving Father. Time to live it!

Some books that I love that tackle these issues are; Velvet Elvis (Rob Bell), Searching for God Knows What (Donald Miller) Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller), and Sex Sushi & Salvation (Christopher George).