Fig leaves
Got some? 'Cause I got TONS. And I use 'em too! They worked for Adam and Eve, so they work for me!
I bet you have some of your own...'Cause human nature? We tend to hide.
The problem with fig leaves though? They eventually dry out, fall off, and you're left completely vulnerable and naked before God. They don't last long and they're temporary. Yet I continue collecting them as I go through life. Pick some up here...pick some up there...cover, cover, cover...
When is the hiding and shame going to end? When will I realize that God still loves me even though it's so ugly inside? It's hating the sin, not the sinner...that applies to me. I have a problem with that. I have a problem accepting the fact that God would love me with all this crap in my heart. Ya know why? Because I don't accept me! And I don't love me like that! Heck! Forget others! If I can't love myself, how am I supposed to love others?!
God's been poking holes in my fig leaves. Forgive the expression but I think it's true. He's gently whispering to me, "Chris...Chris...they're not going to work. They're only going to last for so long." "But no, God! I just want to hide! I don't want to deal with it! It's too much...I'll just keep covering and then I'll look o.k."
Cowardice, saving face, lack of courage, lack of faith...whatever you want to call it, whatever word you want to use to describe it, it's all the same. We hide and hide and hide, protecting ourselves, putting up a good front so people will think everything's o.k. And I always think, "well, if they REALLY knew what I was like on the inside, they really wouldn't like me!!!"
That's lie no. 1...but gosh...what a convincing lie. 'Cause ya know what? Some of that is true! Yet, that is the characteristic of the evil one. He never gives you something so off tangent that it's completely unbelievable. He'll throw in a little truth in there, mixed in with the evil. All he needs to do is make you err in one way and soon you right off the straight and narrow path and off to some other off shoot road that leads you nowhere except to bitterness and trying to live out the Christian life in our own flesh.
I thought I've been dealing with my own stuff. But apparently I haven't been...it's been coming back...
Old issues have been coming back. Stuff I thought I've dealt with. I have but it's just a different layer this time...God's digging deeper. He is going straight in and diving right into my heart. Just digging and digging. MAN IT HURTS! GOSH GOD!
Yesterday, one of my spiritual mentors I met with told me, "So you feel pretty naked and exposed right now, huh? That's exactly where God wants you..."
GAAAAHHHHH! !!@?#%?!#?!? Don't worry, they're not curse words...just indecipherable groans of pain and agitation.
That's just hard to hear 'cause I know it's probably true...He's breaking me down until I have nothing left except the cross.
All the fig leaves I've had have been taken away. They're drying up, they're deteriorating and they're not going to work anymore.
So here I am...exposed...
Naked and vulnerable...
And it's funny because the question is not so much will God love me, but will I love myself? And will I let God love me? Will I accept the fact that nothing's changed because of these heart issues that I see and that He's still just as crazy about me now as He was way back when things weren't so ugly?
The funny thing is I actually think God "found out" about me just now when I am "finding out" about me. But He's already known and it's always been there. It just hasn't come up until now. I don't think I've let it come up to the surface until now. But He's still loved me through it, knowing full well of these issues and what my heart is like.
I need to be convinced about God's love for me as Paul was...
And...
I bet you have some of your own...'Cause human nature? We tend to hide.
The problem with fig leaves though? They eventually dry out, fall off, and you're left completely vulnerable and naked before God. They don't last long and they're temporary. Yet I continue collecting them as I go through life. Pick some up here...pick some up there...cover, cover, cover...
When is the hiding and shame going to end? When will I realize that God still loves me even though it's so ugly inside? It's hating the sin, not the sinner...that applies to me. I have a problem with that. I have a problem accepting the fact that God would love me with all this crap in my heart. Ya know why? Because I don't accept me! And I don't love me like that! Heck! Forget others! If I can't love myself, how am I supposed to love others?!
God's been poking holes in my fig leaves. Forgive the expression but I think it's true. He's gently whispering to me, "Chris...Chris...they're not going to work. They're only going to last for so long." "But no, God! I just want to hide! I don't want to deal with it! It's too much...I'll just keep covering and then I'll look o.k."
Cowardice, saving face, lack of courage, lack of faith...whatever you want to call it, whatever word you want to use to describe it, it's all the same. We hide and hide and hide, protecting ourselves, putting up a good front so people will think everything's o.k. And I always think, "well, if they REALLY knew what I was like on the inside, they really wouldn't like me!!!"
That's lie no. 1...but gosh...what a convincing lie. 'Cause ya know what? Some of that is true! Yet, that is the characteristic of the evil one. He never gives you something so off tangent that it's completely unbelievable. He'll throw in a little truth in there, mixed in with the evil. All he needs to do is make you err in one way and soon you right off the straight and narrow path and off to some other off shoot road that leads you nowhere except to bitterness and trying to live out the Christian life in our own flesh.
I thought I've been dealing with my own stuff. But apparently I haven't been...it's been coming back...
Old issues have been coming back. Stuff I thought I've dealt with. I have but it's just a different layer this time...God's digging deeper. He is going straight in and diving right into my heart. Just digging and digging. MAN IT HURTS! GOSH GOD!
Yesterday, one of my spiritual mentors I met with told me, "So you feel pretty naked and exposed right now, huh? That's exactly where God wants you..."
GAAAAHHHHH! !!@?#%?!#?!? Don't worry, they're not curse words...just indecipherable groans of pain and agitation.
That's just hard to hear 'cause I know it's probably true...He's breaking me down until I have nothing left except the cross.
All the fig leaves I've had have been taken away. They're drying up, they're deteriorating and they're not going to work anymore.
So here I am...exposed...
Naked and vulnerable...
And it's funny because the question is not so much will God love me, but will I love myself? And will I let God love me? Will I accept the fact that nothing's changed because of these heart issues that I see and that He's still just as crazy about me now as He was way back when things weren't so ugly?
The funny thing is I actually think God "found out" about me just now when I am "finding out" about me. But He's already known and it's always been there. It just hasn't come up until now. I don't think I've let it come up to the surface until now. But He's still loved me through it, knowing full well of these issues and what my heart is like.
I need to be convinced about God's love for me as Paul was...
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:38-39
"But be it far from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." -Gal. 6:14
And...
"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
This entry was posted by Christopher Wu, on
Thursday, August 24, 2006.
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