Perhaps we don’t even know what day it is. Maybe our days blur into one giant Wednesday.

No matter how diverse our lives appear from one another, we seem to share this experience the longer we sit on earth: being swallowed in the monotony.

We live for our upcoming vacation, the end of the week, the next exciting life stage. But once we arrive there, do we find what we were looking for? Well, what exactly are we looking for?

One satisfying slice of our weekend is the rest we hope to retrieve, making room for gratuitous pleasures. I believe we search for a kind of enjoyment which makes us feel whole and purposeful. The perfect marriage of this rests in our being utterly happy while utterly meaningful.

I don’t think we can catch happiness all by itself, it seems to be the prize we acquire out of the meaning we secure. Josef Pieper, a renowned Catholic Philosopher and Theologian, argued in his Happiness and Contemplation that our nature reveals that happiness is attained externally. He uses the example of our human thirst, making the case alongside Aquinas that all good things in life “are not insignificant; nevertheless, they do not suffice if we consider the gratification toward which man’s real and deepest thirst is directed.”

We know very well the feeling of this search. We seek it out in fantasy novels, fairytales, and “feel good” Hallmark films. The happy ending. The perfect answer for all our specific wants and needs. It’s, as Pieper says, “the boundlessness of man’s cravings for happiness.”

This doesn’t imply that we are impossible to please–although we certainly can be–but that we are made for something beyond us. He summarizes Aquinas again, “Nothing less than this bonum universale (“the whole good”) can quench completely and ultimately man’s deepest thirst.” We never seem to find the end of our thirst for good. No matter what we have access to, there’s an ache for more.

Last week was one of those Wednesday’s that looked different for me. Instead of writing in my office, I was in LA with my husband and in-laws on a vacation at Universal Studios. As we stepped into the Mario world, the familiar childhood game came to life. Giant walls of moving sets wrapped around us. Toad glides across a perfectly green path while giant coins float seamlessly on sliding blocks.

I hold my niece’s hand while we stare wide-eyed. She tells me, “I just wish I could be up there and able to walk around the map.” I smile and agree.

In a perfectly magical world, there’s still a desire to go in more. To see more. To be a part of what is dazzling us. She explains what many of us can’t quite articulate. We don’t want to just see beauty, we want to become a part of it. Our meaning and happiness depends on it.

It makes me think of when Psalm 33:5 reads, “the earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.” As Pieper says, the joys around us are not insignificant, but rather significantly point to what is beyond our current reach.

I don’t spend every Wednesday at Universal Studios–and thank God for that, as lovely as it was– but this particular day revealed a truth which I could carry into the most mundane Wednesday.

This thirst I have for more feels holy. Perhaps it points to something greater than me or even my conception of it. Christ has given me what I would never cease in my search to find on my own. The blessed gifts of life are not necessary to my meaning, but rather, precurse an ultimate joy which will have no end.

As Christians, it’s tempting to believe that our meaning is only found in eternity. But if that were the case, why would God leave us here in a lifetime waiting room? I don’t believe He meant for us to sit still and watch the hourglass slip by. He gives us all that we need in this present moment. 1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us that we should bring glory to God in everything that we do. But isn’t this another tireless command?

I don’t think so. Giving glory to something means a mutual enjoyment of a visible splendor. Think of that. We are most fulfilled when we are most delighted by God. This isn’t meant to be accomplished alone, but mutually enjoyed with others.

Of course our joys are often shadowed by sorrows, and that topic is more expansive than this singular article can cover. But even in our discomfort, we are aware of something not working as it should. We were made for more and we feel it.

The desire for more doesn’t make us greedy–although it can–but it does reveal our innate eternal state. We were made for good things to last. When children want to “never leave” the park, it resonates with us.

Maybe the ultimate joys in life never end but take shape in another day. Until one day, we find the perfect day which has no end.

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This question comes clearer into frame when life doesn’t go as we expect. Where is God’s goodness when we’re drowning in unforeseen debt? Where is His goodness in the death of a child? Where is His goodness when our house burns down? We kick and shove our way through our pinhole view of God, praying (screaming), where are You now God?

If we have a restricted view of God, we can easily conclude that there is much more of Him which we are not privy to. The question which immediately follows this line of thinking is why do we get this particular view of Him?

Dorothy Sayers in her The Mind of the Maker, attempts to answer this through the example of clams.

“There is, of course, no reason why an infinite Mind should not reveal itself in an infinite number of forms, each being subject to the nature of that particular form…And if God has revealed Himself to clams, it could be only under conditions of perfect clamhood, since any other manifestation would be wholly irrelevant to clam nature.”

Sayers illustration makes us wonder how little a clam may understand its Maker. Aren’t we just as clams?

Jesus incarnates in human form on our behalf, so that we might see the heart of God through Someone we can understand. Not because God is limited to human form or capacity, but because we are. We don’t have the capacity to know God fully because we’re limited to the frame our minds can conjure. Sayers later writes that, “Though [our view of God] is a true revelation it is only a partial revelation.” So, what do we see?

Our attention must now turn to the part of God’s heart which He wants us to see through the life of Jesus. He has several seemingly paradoxical qualities, at least in terms of how we think of a god-like supremacy. Last week’s article (Dare to wonder) hints at this.

For one, Jesus is gentle and meek. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by people who oppose Him. There’s a calm assurance in every word He says, as if he doesn’t need anyone to approve or validate what He is saying. In the same breath, we can clearly see that Jesus cares a great deal about getting His message across. His love of others never discriminates. It just seems to exude out of Him to those who listen.

Second, He is not afraid of rest. Jesus is frequently found disappearing into the wilderness to pray. Our modern minds often equate success with stamina. Jesus doesn’t seem to abide by such rules. Although, it’s not as though He doesn’t push through some very difficult times. But it seems the rest He finds sustains Him through it.

Jesus often evades death throughout His ministry. Until, of course, He dies Himself. Which feels like a third point in itself because dying feels like losing. The Pharisees get what they want. As Jesus takes His final breaths, the crowds taunt: “He cannot even save Himself!” (Matthew 27:42).

We know the end of the story. Jesus’ death is the necessary means in which we can receive salvation. But, why does He do any of this? There seems to be a steadying beneath His every move, something or Someone which grounds Him.

It’s no mystery. Jesus plainly repeats that He is not following His own will but the will of His Father (John 5:30). Since we are looking to Jesus as our perfect example, it must be important to understand what this dependency looks like and why it is so necessary. How can we depend on someone we aren’t certain is always there? And how can we make sense of the evil which we live in if our view of the world is so constricted?

I think Jesus must know the feeling of God’s absence, too. The same Father who Jesus says “not My will, but Your will be done,” He now cries out on the cross, “My God, My God, why did You forsake me?” Jesus suffered true abandonment from God on the cross.

This radical act of love shows us something about what God cares about–what He is willing to give up for. Has He done all that so that He will leave us too?

That must not be true. Jesus faced abandonment so that we never have to. God redeemed the most vile act of injustice through the death of His Son, won’t He finish what He’s started?

When the lights dim and the world caves in, we fear we’re left alone. But suppose we consider Jesus. Man of Sorrows and acquainted with much grief–He empathizes with our fear and pain. His death reminds us of the hope within the darkness. His death is not in vain. Perhaps this dependency on Him marks us with a reminder of how relentlessly loved we are.

What if He’s not finished with you and I? Perhaps He’s just beginning.

We aren’t even close to discovering who God is in our human limitations. So we can hardly call them limitations. Many of us walk in a small patch only, never looking out to the vast beyond. The more we tip-toe out of the comfortable patch we’re accustomed with, we may find that this boundary is an entry gate to something far more wonderful than we’re prepared to see.

This world isn’t created by accident. Each wandering stream and curious squirrel is meant to point back to its’ Creator. Creation is meant to help us not only see God but to enjoy Him. His love is realized through our physical world all around us.

Perhaps we are, as Dorothy Sayers puts it–as clams. Our view is short, but no less true. What will we do with this freedom? Shall we explore the treasures of the ocean beneath us?

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For some of us, this statement is very off-putting. Of course we’re not bored of God, it feels blasphemous even to say. We may well reflect on if we always turn to our Bibles, with eager anticipation for what the pages will reveal about Him. Or, if our prayers are a form of relational discourse rather than a form of habit. Is God sacred to us because we’re told He is holy or because we’ve found Him to be?

But, even then, not every moment with Him feels sacred. Is it because He is less beautiful than He was the day before? No. Our admission that He is boring to us is not a reflection of His holiness but rather our inability to notice it.

Inability may be the wrong word. It’s not so much that we can’t see it, but that for some reason we’ve lost interest to even try. As though we’re watching a documentary which we know is fascinating but can’t quite keep our eyelids open long enough to finish it.

Perhaps we’ve lost the art of what it means to sit in unanswered awe and wonder.

This isn’t true for children. When we are young, the world is wide and curious. We don’t know anything but we want to know everything. Each discovery is exciting as the next. It’s not unsettling to not understand how the world works: we eagerly wait to learn. But as time goes on, something shifts in us. We don’t just want our questions to be answered, we want to be the one explaining it.

Lost in our innocence is the sense that we must know. Many of us don’t allow ourselves to continue to learn, we instead learn to mask our ignorance. We embody the mantra to “fake it ‘till you make it,” because we’re terrified of the alternative. It feels vulnerable to not know.

Children seem to learn something which we grow out of: excitement in the unknown. They eagerly exclaim, “I wonder what dinner will be,” as they salivate the possibilities. With enough disappointments–and perhaps pea-soup on the menu–the unknown becomes less appealing to us. This is in part due to the fact that we begin to make our own dinners. We become the adults that children depend on. As our childhood fades, our sense of wonder follows. Yet, within our ability to wonder is the gateway to much enjoyment in life.

I believe this must be the point of why God has only partially revealed Himself to us. We are meant to explore–we are meant to learn. Our search leads us to not only greater dependence on Him but greater enjoyment of Him.

Jesus explains this posture to the crowds when He said, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all” (Luke 18:17).

This child-like dependence Jesus is talking about is only possible by looking outside of ourselves. We are rarely in awe of something we do. Awe is usually inspired by grandeur beyond our comprehension–the splendor of a mountain, the vast sea our eyes cannot find the end to. It is easy to be swept away by these beautiful sights. God’s sense of otherness is different–it can be so overwhelming that we don’t attempt to try to grasp Him.

While our view of Him is limited, studying the Bible is the best place to start. Here we learn not only of God Himself, but His Word incarnate through the life of Christ. I’ve often missed the beauty of what it means that Jesus is the “Word became flesh.” The heart of who God is, the words etched in His mind–personified through Jesus. That is incredible because Jesus is most known for His meekness.

Meek, not weak. He is gentle but confident. Even faced with the most powerful men of His time, He never blinks. He knows who He is and whose He is.

We don’t often get too far in our Bible-reading because we’re stuck wondering what it has to do with us specifically. It’s natural and right to think about how our life is shaped by God. But if we really want to know Him, we must allow ourselves to hear the stories we cannot relate to. To learn the tone of the One we are learning from. To read for the pure sake of knowing Him, not by trying to find comfort in one of His attributes.

In addition to scripture, we find God’s beauty all around us. Psalm 24:1 reminds us, “the earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it.” His creation is meant to reflect His nature. Although sin taints much of the world, we can still trace the intention in His design. We may feel His holiness through a sunrise or the smile of a stranger.

I imagine God gives us our five senses to not only enjoy life, but instrument our wonder and enjoyment of Him.

His handprints are visible all around us if we look up to see them. To do this, we must enter a vulnerable place: the unknown. But perhaps we will find something far more spectacular than the comfortable “known” we are accustomed with. Maybe God is far larger and far more beautiful than we expect.

Do we dare to wonder?

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For those of us on this part of the lawn, we may have told ourselves that this type of thinking is a strength or even resilience. Maybe even heroic. The world is rested firmly on our shoulders and we feel a weight we don’t always notice on others. If we remain long enough, our burdens can crumble us into a pile of chronically dissatisfied victims. We’ll end up looking for disappointments before they have a chance to find us–reaching for the short end of the stick rather than waiting to find out if we’ll be stuck with it.

When my doctor tells me that there’s a minor risk for something, I brace for impact. I frequently joke that I’m “that 1%.” It discreetly creates a defense mechanism which I’ve long perfected. Three decades of what I call a “realistic” view of life I now realize as something else entirely. In an effort to protect myself from disappointment, I’ve kept enjoyment at an arms-length distance, too. This isn’t to say I’ve never experienced the joys of life or gratitude for the good things God gives. However, I recognize an inward tendency to not only plan for the worst case scenario–but to expect it.

It’s difficult to notice good moments–and even more difficult to enjoy them–if we live in this anticipation of dissatisfaction.

The other day, I let out a frustrated sign without knowing where it came from. What on earth? The irony was palpable as I sat in a ferry-line on a gorgeous Seattle-Summer day on a day-trip with my husband. Reality smacked me in the face: am I so accustomed with melancholy that it’s become second-nature to me? Instead of feasting my eyes on the spread of mountains lining the sky as the Puget Sound spilled beneath it, I sank into an unfortunate instinctual position. I exchanged beauty for blues.

Auto-pilot-mode reveals what we truly think and care about. We relate the level of our proficiency as to something “we can do in our sleep.” Our brains are so used to following these pathways that they run while we aren’t even thinking about it. While we may never voice our expectations, they are far from dormant in our lives. They formulate how we view and experience the world. Since disappointments in life are unavoidable, it becomes very important to understand how we should react to them.

Although it seems rather depressing to expect the world to disappoint us, the positive alternative seems slightly more pathetic. If we presume that our lot in life is generally good we risk catapulting our happy little balloon into a cactus at the first sight of trouble. We cannot hang our hat on the sweetness of life to never sour.

Maybe we ought to expect nothing from life–neither good nor bad. Then again, we aren’t machines. We cannot simply eliminate our emotions. And numbing our senses to difficulties only delegates the work of processing them to our physical bodies, where the damage sinks deeper. Even stoicism leaves us more bitter than our previously melancholic state.

Disappointment seems to mask a hidden fear. A fear that we aren’t getting what we think we need. It implies that there’s something good to be had that we do not or can not quite reach.

As I boarded the ferry, I tried to rest my eyes on the lapping waters around me. I almost became dizzy instead. My focus involuntarily followed each wave, bobbing my gaze. Somehow, this too was frustrating to me. I can’t even do the simple task of resting my eyes. Then, I looked up. Mount Rainier stared back at me. She was–as locals say–“out and about.” The sky was clear and I could outline her glacier-crusted peaks. Beautiful. I snapped a picture because I wanted to remember this moment.

Rainier did not move, and neither did my eyes. The wind battered against my face alongside another realization: I was hoping for the joys of life to sustain me. I expected it to give me what it could not. And, it left me continually disappointed.

God designs us with longings for the eternal. It makes every sense in the world we would crave it. He doesn’t do this so that He can hoard our attention to sustain His Deity. God created us with these innate desires so that we trace it back to Him; so that our eyes search for the steady place it’s always wanted.

This isn’t some mystical idea, it’s entirely practical. If God meets our needs, then we don’t need life to give us anything. If the good things in life aren’t necessary for us, we can enjoy them all the more. They accessorize the sustainable joy we have in Christ.

Of course this application colors our disappointments too. Even in the most cruel circumstances, God promises to redeem every moment. He won’t waste a single tear (Psalm 56:8). Christ took our punishment on the cross and buried the power of death itself. Evil will never win, although it will have its day in the sun.

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This is easier said than done. But can we reflect on the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf? We are living in the celebration of what He has already accomplished. There is nothing left. Death is dead. Evil has lost. And one day, Christ will return. We have every good reason to believe that God won’t give up on us now.

We cannot look at the world without expectations unless we have a worldview that answers all of our needs outside of the world and its circumstances.

But, suppose we do. Maybe we’d be able to look up from the grass and meet our neighbor’s gaze, and find a friend instead. Maybe we’d see the flowers circling our feet which we missed before. Maybe we’d find a whole lot more joy than we’d expect.

I know, this all sounds a bit woo-woo. But it must be important to understand where our missed expectations bring us, because they shape how we experience the world.

And our experience certainly impacts those around us. Smiles are contagious but complaints are poisonous.

Discontentment is capable of stealing our attention from not only small joys in life but from our greatest good. As Christians, we must ask ourselves:

Do we believe what we say about God to be true?

Do we believe what God says about Himself to be true?

In last week’s article (linked here), I claimed that the object of our worship had the power to form our very identity. Not only this, we know that worship is unescapable. We cannot avoid worship, but where we direct it is entirely up to our volition. Worship is not only tied to our identity but to our enjoyment.

God created us so that we might delight in Him. We can only do this so much as we find Him delightful. John Owen in Communion with God summarizes this way, “So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more.” Jonathan Edwards simplifies it further, “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” It isn’t something we passively enjoy, but is our greatest affection and has our utmost attention.

That’s what worship is: the outward expression of what we most delight in. In Christian language, we might call this what we glory in.

This may sound as if God sort of needs our worship. As if He is not only egotistical but very needy. To understand why God designs us for worship, we must examine the doctrine of His Trinitarian nature.

God’s Trinitarian Nature

God exists in three persons, the Father, His Son and Holy Spirit. His nature is and always has been to give outwardly. They are in an eternal reciprocation of worship and adoration of one another. Unlike our human relationships, this one is perfect. God invites us into this so that we might experience this too.

Michael Reeves in Delighting in the Trinity describes it beautifully, “And so, just as the Father decided to include us in His love for the Son, to share it with us, so the Son chose to include us in His love for the Father.”

Notice our role in this: we do nothing. God is not worried that He will somehow become less holy if we cease to worship Him. His Deity isn’t dependent on creation. As Reeves puts it, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit include us in their reciprocal love–we join in as a mere breath in their eternal loving exchange.

If God doesn’t need our worship and He desires it for our own enjoyment of Him, then there must be something both attractive and reassuring about this. For one, there is no effort expected from us. We need only to enjoy. If God’s love is secure and unmoving, then perhaps we don’t need to fear that this enjoyment won’t last. Won’t it grow as the Trinitatian love does? I wonder what sort of resilience this would nurture within us if we believed that our identity was formed from this sort of unshakeable, unfathomable love.

To enjoy God we must know Him. And most of us are swimming in the shallow end, unmoved to venture forward to see what more could be discovered of Him. This is likely because we aren’t in the regular habit of stretching our minds to see that God might in fact be much larger than we imagine.

Consider the feeling of sinking into the ocean until we feel it carrying us. The size of it might send us flailing about, in fear of being swallowed by it. We’ll quickly tire ourselves out if we stay here too long. But, suppose we are to flip on our backs and instead resist the urge to fight the waves. We now find that our buoyancy sets us free. The act of forgetting ourselves allows us to enjoy the weightless enjoyment of what is holding us.

So it is with knowing God. We don’t need to prove ourselves to feel worthy enough, it seems that part has already been taken care of for us.

This stretches into other relationships. If we’re in conversation with a friend and too busy worrying about what our response will be–or perhaps even daydreaming what we’ll have for lunch–we simply won’t enjoy the person we’re speaking with as much. Maybe we’re so distracted by how their words impact us that we forget to see how it’s impacting them. If we’re busy trying to find our reflection in every window we pass or through the glasses of the person we’re talking to, we’ll quite miss the beauty all around us.

Yet, this is quite often how we choose to live. We’re bewildered as to why life is less enjoyable but unable–or unwilling–to see how we may be the ones getting in our own way. Giving glory to ourselves is quite exhausting. I wonder how much more we would enjoy life if we didn’t need so much from it. If we already felt whole, our achievements wouldn’t need to define us.

Life must be far more free this way. It’s more freeing when we worship One who doesn’t need us, but desires us. It’s more freeing when we believe that the core of our value can never be diminished. It’s more freeing when our doing is influenced by enjoying and not proving.

Perhaps, this is why God created us to find our identity in Him. Our worship of Him must be far less about being someone and more about enjoying Someone. We all get to determine our greatest affections. Every day, we make small decisions which lead us to pursue something. Since worship is the response to our utmost enjoyment, who has our attention and to what are we responding to?

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Our achievements can be realized through accolades, the trust of a friend, or the “best dad ever” crayon masterpiece which lives on our desk. When we look in the mirror, we’re proud of who we are and what we are known for.

It’s not always so pleasant though now, is it? We all know the highs we reach hardly compare to the lows we descend to when we fail to meet those standards. For some of us, this is quite devastating. If we aren’t known as a good person–however we envision this to be–then, who are we?

It’s a question we may not even know the answer to. Although, it doesn’t have to be so dire. We can always pick ourselves back up and try again. Our resiliency keeps us grounded. But, herein lies the problem. Once we re-establish ourselves, our next failure threatens to swallow us once more. It’s a vicious cycle. Even when our confidence is at its peak, we can never be sure that it will last. Our identity hangs in the balance.

One may protest, “Ah, but, my identity is in Christ. I must simply remind myself of who I am in Him.” We can’t very well coerce ourselves into accepting this identity, otherwise we probably would have done so already. Identity then must come from someplace other than cognitive recognition.

If we are to keep returning to the very core of our being, it must be something we love very much. It must be our greatest affection.

In church speak, we would say that this is what worship is. Our identity is formed by what we worship. It’s where we find our worth. In fact, the word “worship” originates from an old English word weorþscipe which translates to worth-ship. It is the adoration of something which is worthy. This is not merely something which we admire, but something which we so intensely desire that we want to emulate it. It forms us in ways we may not initially recognize.

We slowly become like what we worship. But, if our identity is shaped by our worship of a perfect Deity, why do we feel so lacking? We may conclude there’s something wrong with us. Or, perhaps, even with God.

Let’s imagine for a moment that we don’t know who we worship based on the group we usually lump ourselves with. For instance, to say that since I call myself a Christian that I must automatically assume the object of my worship is God. Or, that I am from Texas so I must enjoy rodeos and cowboy boots. Yet, if you were to look in my closet you would not find a single western item. This is by design because I don’t care for the style nor the activities that go along with it. It seems we’re too complex to be so presumptuous.

Let’s do an inventory, shall we? We must try to remove the labels we associate with and simply explore the closest within our minds and determine which pieces take the most precedence.

We may provide for our families in meaningful ways, whether that be financially, logistically, or emotionally. They depend on us in ways they may not be able to articulate.

Perhaps we’re a peacemaker in our family. We solve problems, mediate squabbles, and bring levity into tense situations.

Some of us are known for being planners. Vacations don’t magically appear just like houses don’t run themselves. We quietly work in the background to make things happen.

None of this is possible without the faithful work of the financial provider of the home. Some of us lead this role or share it with our spouse. There are countless mental calculations which need to be accomplished to keep life going and safely prepare for its unpredictabilities.

Similarly, perhaps we’re just as devoted to ministry. This may be an area in which we feel God wants us to pursue–or, as church language would frame it–we feel led to do. Applying ourselves to fill a visible gap within the church comes natural to us.

Some of us are known in our community. We don’t just live in our neighborhood, we are a part of it. Playdates and cook-outs are hosted at our house. If there’s a need, we’re dedicated to finding a resolution for it. Our attention spans further than our block. Troubles in neighboring communities, or other parts of the world, affect us deeply.

We bear the problems of the world on our shoulders. And most don’t see nor appreciate the change we make. Worse, our work can be attacked by those we believe should fight alongside us. But then again, if we do nothing, who will? We are confident in the difference we implement.

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What wonderful things to be proud of achieving. But, even this list of good and godly efforts are capable of stealing our affections. What happens when we aren’t doing well, or even failing at what we do? Maybe we feel disappointed with ourselves and ashamed at how people may start to perceive us. When we stop being noticed for what we do, does it make us more resistant to continue to do them?

Resentment may grow underneath the surface. We may even feel taken advantage of. But, perhaps we picked up a weight no one asked us to. The fear of “enoughness” begins to creep up again.

If we aren’t known as the dependable one, the good mom, the hard-worker–then, who are we? Are we allowing the things which we do to define us? It can feel like a holy pursuit to sacrifice for our families, steward our money wisely, or fight for justice within our community.

As we consider our values, are they no longer side-line pursuits but the very core of our identity?

Put another way, are we confident in who we are if we aren’t known by the things we do?

God does not need our good deeds nor our worship. I believe He must have designed us to worship so that we might be included in something magnificent. We worship so that we look more and more like Him.

Of course, we cannot and do not emulate Him perfectly. Nature puts us to shame, as they reflect their Creator greater than we ever could. I suppose we could ask God why He didn’t simply make us a nice tree or a curious squirrel.

What distinguishes us from other created things and beings is that we are not only meant to worship Him, but through it we most clearly bear His image. We don’t worship so that God is more lovely, but that we are more lovely. How can we do this if we don’t first find Him lovely?

I suppose there may not be a more worthwhile thing to ponder on.

Next week, I want to explore what this enjoyment might look like and why we would care about it. Stay tuned.

This is partially devastating because we’d like to think of ourselves as good people–certainly better than the irate man who is kicked off the plane for disrespecting a flight attendant. Aren’t we glad we aren’t like him? Yes, our life is much more put together and our faults a bit more discrete.

We’re offended by people who seem less moral than us. Perhaps they mirror a side of ourselves we’d rather not see. It forces us to reconcile within ourselves: is our inner life just as depraved as theirs? We shudder at the thought and push it aside. Yet, the nagging sensation persists. As we continually fail to meet our own expectations, we’re confounded with the truth of our own guilt.

Don’t we all carry a certain level of shame with us? Some of us wear it more readily than others. Truly, what unites nearly all humanity–whether believing in God or not–is our understanding of our own shortcomings. The Christian understands that they are not defined by it. Yet, we don’t generally behave like it. We’ve made a home for shame and call it something holy to disguise its habitation.

Perhaps we’ve eased our conscience by excusing–even in some cases glorifying–our sin. We wear it as a crown on our heads. We name gossip as discernment and slander as justice. To bear the guilt we feel, we attempt to soften the severity of it in our lives.

Although, we can also deal with shame on the other side of the spectrum. Instead of dismissing our sin we enlarge it. We dig our heads in the mire of it and can’t see a way out. Of course, it feels like we’re dutifully convicted of our sin. We take solace in the awareness of our guilt alone without seeing a way forward.

We may tend towards one side, or teeter between both of them. Both leave us empty and scattered. We continually fight the feeling of unworthiness. Are we then no different than those who don’t know the doctrine of grace? If both those who claim to be Christian and those who do not understand our flaws, then our perception of God must alter what we do with them.

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Who do we feel badly for when we are in the wrong? Take for example, we get upset at someone on the road. Perhaps after the fact we feel remorse for it. It’s not common to spend much time feeling bad for the other person. Typically we feel badly about our behavior–if anything at all. This is because we don’t have any connection with the person we’ve offended.

Now, say we lash out at our loved one. Our remorse feels more consequential now. We know the other person must be hurting and we are in turn hurt that we are the ones who caused it. On the scale between the stranger on the road and our loved one, consider where God falls on this spectrum. What runs through our minds when we offend Him? Do we consider what He feels?

Perhaps we don’t often do this because we’ve made our offense quite small. Or, we’ve made Him too small. Something deeply consequential happens if we do this. When we deny the reality of our sin we also deny our access to the joy of being rid of it. How can we be joyful if we don’t think we needed it much anyway?

We cannot be happy about something we don’t know about. The news of salvation is only as sweet as our felt need for it. If we don’t feel our sin has grieved a God we find beautiful, it will either be a momentary blip in our otherwise routine day or it will debilitatingly consume us. We cannot deny sin nor attempt to ward it off on our own.

Isn’t this the point of the Gospel? The very beauty being that we don’t carry the weight of our shame. Perhaps, by not addressing who we are without Christ we don’t see the beauty of who we are IN Christ.

This is why many of us feel like we’re constantly scraping by. Also moving from one fault to the next. It feels safer to minimize our role in sin so that we don’t feel the impending sense of unworthiness.

What if instead we were to lean into this feeling of unworthiness? Not through our lens, either in minimizing our guilt or drowning in it. No. How might we feel if we look at our guilt as God does? He’s already dealt the justice for our inadequacies. He doesn’t see our pitiful efforts to be good enough. He sees Jesus. It is not simply understanding that we’ve sinned but rather who we’ve sinned against.

We must first find God beautiful to see that He is holy.

We must first find Jesus good to see that His sacrifice was the greatest act of love.

Only then can we see the reality of our sin in light of a God we find attractive.

I wonder if this would free us to see the world and fellow-sinners around us as not threats to our morality but people who need Jesus just as much as we do. Perhaps we wouldn’t stack our sins against theirs if we saw them as loved by God as we felt.

Maybe we’re neglecting grace right now. We’re worn out and feel alone. Perhaps, God hasn’t left us. Maybe the distance we feel from Him is our own straying gaze. It’s difficult to see His goodness when we are stuck proving our own. What is often obscuring our vision of Him is the shame we refuse to shed.

I believe God has much more for us than this. He desires a life more abundant than we can imagine. Are we willing to not only know grace but live as if it were true in our lives?

Maybe, God is more beautiful than we thought.

In addition to finding a whole new community, I’m also in a life stage which feels like a middle space. Those who are my age usually have multiple children and those who are in my phase of life–married and no kids–are much younger. This is in part due to being in the southern part of the country. Regardless, developing friendships is a bit more complex.

I am blessed to have many, dear friends. However, I understand and very much feel the need for a community in close proximity. As I walk through our neighborhood trail, I see eyes which seem to look past me and not at me. Small talk finds a quick resolution instead of leading to unexpected friendship. I began to notice that the lack of children-factor to my life stage seemed to be getting in the way of making friends.

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One instance happened recently when a friend of mine and her family came to live with us for some time. Her and I would go on walks together when we could. One day, I was meeting her on the trail. She forgot her stroller so I brought snagged it before heading out to catch up with her. With my two dogs in tow, I rolled the empty stroller down to our meeting spot at the cafe on the trail. My usual experience of empty stares was now met with smiles–until of course they noticed the empty seat. Which–I’m sure–was a comical sight.

Perhaps, this one-off occurrence was a coincidence. I felt the difference all the same. And to be honest, I initially took it personally.

While it’s easy to feel slighted by what feels like a pattern of dismissive interactions–each person has individual lives which I know nothing about. The people who abruptly ended a small chat may have been late to an appointment. Or, processing a sudden, unexpected grief.

I’m only exposed to a fraction of someone’s life when I pass by strangers. I have no idea what they might be going through. If I judge them for not behaving in the way I specifically wanted at that moment, am I not treating other people as a resource? I cannot really see someone if I’m looking for them to fill a need for me. And I’m certainly not seeing them how God does.

If we expect people to fulfill our unmet needs and desires we will crush them in the process. We are complex beings with complex needs–and, no human can possibly answer them. God designed us to need Him so that we might not only enjoy Him but mutually enjoy our human relationships more, too.

We cannot turn off our feelings, can we? The solution isn’t for me to stop wanting a local community. This is indeed a good thing which God created us for. Yet, we don’t experience it as good. It feels broken and often hurts us. This story is just one small example among many others where people fail to show up in ways we would hope.

We find that the world does not work as intended every day. Love is tarnished. Trust is abandoned. Hope is squelched. All because evil still runs rampant in the world. Things will not work as they ought and we will continue to feel the effects of them.

Yet, we are not really hopeless. We are not left in this disordered world alone. Through Christ’s sacrificial love towards us, we are invited into the deepest and sweetest community. And His love can never be tainted or torn away from us.

This isn’t meant to simply deny what we’re going through. We can bring to Him our feelings of disappointments and grief over how this sin-marked world taints what ought to be perfect. He will not leave us alone there. When we express our need for God, He will surely answer. No human or created thing can satisfy our quench for the eternal Home we are designed for.

So, maybe it’s not about ignoring our disappointments in life but redirecting them. If we attempt to resolve the problem on our own terms, we will exhaust ourselves. If we attempt to project it onto others, we will exhaust them, too. What weight might be lifted off our shoulders if we turn over our needs to God instead? Perhaps we don’t need to solve any problem at all. Then, we may see how we can be used to be apart of the solution.

As Christians, we get a unique perspective to those around us. We are given eyes to see those who are hurting. We have ears to hear those who are needy. Not to simply notice and turn away. Some ways we can tangibly help someone in need and other ways we can silently pray for them as they pass us by. This isn’t an accident. God often uses us to show someone His comfort or love. What a beautiful privilege. Are we using it?

The next time I notice a slight on the trail, I am given another opportunity. Will I see those walking next to me the way God sees them?

You see, we have such a short amount of time to interact with people. For some, it’s just a few seconds. Perhaps if I wasn’t so focused on what others can offer me I can see how I might be the very community I long for. What if, the reason why I feel this so strongly is because God is calling me to start what I notice is lacking. How many others feel the very same as me, lonely and in need of a friend?

This is what it looks like to be the church. It’s rarely how we operate on Sundays. Being the church means embodying Christ’s love to others. It means being slighted sometimes and making an effort when you don’t feel it reciprocated. It means choosing to forgive before someone recognizes they hurt you.

Being the church means choosing to smile and notice our trail-buddy so that for the three seconds they see us they might get a glimmer of Christ reflected in our eyes.

Perhaps some of us feel but haven’t yet named it. Somewhere inside, we feel a gradual discomfort with an apparent disconnect from the words we hear in church and our lived experience with God. Our Biblical education teaches us of God’s faithfulness, but we seem to be more acquainted with His silence. We hear of His everlasting love, but the view from here is foggy.

We may be distrustful of His character as He continually fails to work in our life in the way we hope. Something feels lost or missing. This itch grows increasingly more uncomfortable.

Isn’t there more to this Christian life?

There’s a longing inside which isn’t being met in our relationship with God. This can be entirely disappointing because many of us have spent much of our life entrenched in ministry. We may richly invest in the life of our family, local church, and community while our relationship with God feels impoverished.

When we stand back and survey what we’ve accomplished in our Christian life, it’s impressive. Church leaders. Faithful parents. Avid volunteers. We silently serve in the back, or visibly in the front. It grows increasingly more difficult to face the discrepancies we feel with how we live and what we feel about God the more engrossed we are in ministry.

We’re the face of many churches, yet why do we feel like God is a million miles away?

Maybe we’re less obviously religious as the group just described. God and His church serves as a foundational bedrock to our moralistic standards. He is good and attending church is the right thing to do. We may be able to explain the “why” behind this to others. When we’re alone with our thoughts, this is much more difficult to reconcile. Our relationship with God feels more abstract and less tangible.

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It’s difficult to process those more outwardly devout than we are because it can feel disingenuous. From our vantage point, there’s much of the church or God’s character which we don’t understand or possibly mistrust. We slowly detach, but quietly wonder if we’ve got it all wrong. Is there something we’re missing about God?

Either camp we fall into, our distrust of God’s character remains the same. We feel equally inwardly distant toward Him. We have a longing that isn’t being fulfilled through Him anymore. Or, dare we say–were we ever?

It’s a natural, human response to make comparisons. We do it unconsciously all the time. We want to identify the “good guys” and the “bad guys.” But one repeating theme throughout the Bible is that our sin and dependence on God is a great equalizer. We have each betrayed God in our own hearts.

This can be difficult to wrap our brains around. Our mutual need for grace is a difficult concept to accept because it forces us to reconcile the egregiousness of our own sin. We each want to feel like we aren’t like “those people.”

Those of us who are more active in church may point our fingers to ones lingering in the back. We inwardly make assumptions about their character while feeling just a little bit better about our own moral position and good standing in church. Look at how they use their free time. Are they even reading their Bible?

We may not say these words out loud, but hold them deep inside. It’s what makes us bristle in defense when we’re admonished by someone who we feel is less morally upstanding than we are. How can someone like them speak into what I’m doing? We feel they are less devoted to Christ than we are and take comfort in the fact that we’re “at least not like them.”

While the other side is equally judgemental towards the more religious group. Their actions are a little too “on the nose,” or even embarrassing to be associated with. We feel we have found the perfect strike of balance between being a Christian and not appearing like a crazy person. We poke holes in the discrepancies we see within what they say and how they act towards others. It can even feel entertaining even to watch their failures.

“Aha, see!” We say, “At least we aren’t as conceited as them.” Their actions seem delusional at best and disingenuous at worst.

Both back and front seaters are content with our position in the church, finding solace in our particular version of Christian we’ve chosen. Yet, we’re plagued with the same symptom of loneliness and felt distance from God. Being lumped in the same group is equally disarming for both sides. But, what if we could remove any predispositions and see that we may have something to learn from one another. Both our ways seem to not be working. Either in working to prove our own value in our performance in church or find it in moralism outside of it, it appears we’ve missed the point.

It feels like one way or the other, we’ve found a reason to need God less with the Christian life we find as the best. Maybe, someone who understands their need for God holds onto their views of self less tightly. They may not be so afraid to be wrong because it wouldn’t change anything about how God sees them. Is that it? Perhaps, our view of God reveals how we believe Him to view us. What if we lived as though we actually believed God unconditionally loved us?

This sounds like a freeing place to be. Maybe we’d have a new love for those around us who think differently than us. We might even learn from them. I believe this must change everything in life.

Instead of defending our point of views, we may hear others who don’t think like us more. Instead of proving our own value through our work, we might find joy in our work again. We may even begin to see our neighbor just as loved as we feel by God. Is this what it means to live in the freedom of knowing Christ?

If we diminish just one of His attributes our whole view of God is minimized. We want Him to act in certain ways in our life and in the world. But when He doesn’t, our expectations can quietly become conditions for our devotion.

Of course–we might say–that would contradict what we know of God described to us in the Bible. But do we live as if it were true?

God as Omnipotent But Not Sovereign
Perhaps we resonate more with a moralistic view of God. We can easily get behind His authority, but His love feels a bit less familiar. The rules outlined in the Bible do not feel so burdensome to implement. They are quite helpful because they clearly outline what a “good Christian ought to do.” Perhaps the confidence we thrive in is fueled by our compliance to abide by them.

Although inwardly our pursuit of holiness exhausts us more than give us this life-giving flourishing we are promised. While we may feel gratification for the times we measure up to the standards we believe in, when we fail them it shatters us. It’s an exhausting roller-coaster of emotions as we ebb and flow in our Christian commitments.

This view of God promotes our own performance in our Christian life as a sort of prerequisite to His faithfulness to us.

We must obey God. But, is it really for our good? It feels more like obliging a duty and less like a response of affection. The laws of the Lord feel far from our delight (Psalm 1:2). If we’re overtly aware of our own shortcomings, how can His love even be trusted? We may see Him more as a difficult-to-please dictator and less like a relational Father. Perhaps we’ve missed something along the way. This is a far cry from the so-called freedom we hear we’re meant to have in Christ.

God as Sovereign But Not Omnipotent

On the other hand, we may believe God to be good but instead have difficulty with His authority. It is His goodness which may initially compel us to know Him. Among other things, Christianity provides a sense of relief from the evil we see so evidently around us. God’s love is exactly what we’re all about, but His authority may make us uncomfortable.

Why might this be? Perhaps we’ve seen it used previously to excuse abuse from leadership, or as a weaponization for manipulation, or many other heinous things under the name of religion and following “God’s direction.”

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While His love draws us in, we may be less moved by His commands because they don’t always make sense to us. There are times when we cannot understand what He is doing in our life. Or, maybe, we’ve come across difficult-to-understand scriptures that make us feel uneasy. We’re conflicted. Do we believe that God knows better than we do?

It might be easier to follow Christian commands as a general guideline so long as it makes logical sense in our modern minds. We may study the Bible through the lens of our self-imposed expectations of God rather than observing what the texts reveal to us about Him. With this perspective, God reminisces more of a fantasy figure than a Deity. He is one we can go to when we want something but cannot rely on necessarily getting that particular thing. He’s kind, but not perfect.

In a loveless view of God, we may find our confidence in our upheld moralistic behaviors. In a non-authoritative view, however, our confidence wanes on our ability to feel like a good person. We care for the needs of those who are often overlooked and speak for the one who doesn’t have a voice. But no matter how hard we try, we seem to be always missing the mark of the standards we make for ourselves. Are we doing enough? Did we make enough difference in the world? The confidence we feel even in our best moments still feels lacking.

If we attempt to remove the parts of His character which we do not relate to, do we also subject Him to our own interpretation and therefore create our own version of a god? Just as those who struggle with God’s goodness, we may feel like we’ve sourced the superior way of being a Christian. Although our versions of God appear different. In our pursuit of holiness, I wonder if we want to be good so badly that we stop caring if it’s defined by God or not.

Both viewpoints described are not inherently evil, although we can certainly use them to be. They can reveal a deeply ingrained holy desire which God has impressed on us. We admire God’s authority to the point we would rather not see the parts of Him which don’t seem to fit. Or, we love His love so that we can’t possibly see how He would demand anything of us that doesn’t make sense.

God is not something which we can pick apart, choosing aspects of His character to formulate a version we’re more comfortable with. We may know this in theory but still struggle living this out in practice.

What if these tendencies don’t reveal a flaw within us, but rather a misguided passion? And, in limiting our view of God, we also limit ourselves and the purpose He’s given us. Perhaps, He’s made us for so much more than we’ve settled for. The god we’ve crafted is small, weak, and needy. It will fail us time and again so that we may begin to believe that it is God who is failing us.

Maybe there’s something about God’s sovereignty and omnipotence which scares us. A God which cannot be fully understood. This God cannot be tamed or presented more palatable for our modern appetite. His existence is not dependent on our conception of Him. Yet, in all His glory, maybe His love is unfathomably more accessible than we think. Maybe there is rich life waiting for us beyond our limited view of God.

Stresses come from the outside as much as inwardly. It’s difficult to point to whether we’re more concerned about disappointing ourselves or others. Perhaps we’re plagued with both.

This is a vicious cycle. We’re always trying to arrive at some place of having it all–or mostly–together. When we feed the anxiety of somehow reaching this point, we’ll continually find that we’re never able to satiate these desires. We will not be content if we rely on feeling satisfied with our circumstances.

I can say this with confidence because I’m living it right now. I’m in the most secure period of time. Yet, I still feel like I’m waiting for things to happen. I’m looking for the next part instead of remaining in my current one.

Whether we feel like we’re in a “good” or “bad” part of life, our search for the “better” situation never seems to end. If we can just get through this everything will be fine–we whisper to ourselves.

We seem to be racing to arrive at a place we can’t reach. This must be a common human experience which we all face to varying degrees. And, I presume, we collectively wish to exit this labyrinth.

Is it possible to be unshaken by life? Of course, being unbothered by it is simply not achievable while living in our broken world. Even if we were to silence our emotional response, our body would surely take the hit at some point. We cannot muffle our pain or bury our fears. But, what must it look like to not lose our footing over it?

Let us imagine for a moment what it must take to become someone who envelopes these unshakable characteristics. Someone who isn’t continually waiting for the next rung in life, but instead stays happily in place right where they’re at. What kind of person must we be and what sort of things must we do?

In order to achieve this sort of peace, I think we must begin with understanding our own expectations. Our quest for “something better” usually indicates that we’re disappointed with our life to some capacity. We’ve missed our expectations–or those we feel others impose on us.

Expectation of our troubles

It is safe to presume that a world run by sinners for thousands of years will be layered with twisted pain and injustice. Life goes awry because of it. We lose our jobs, long-standing friendships dissolve overnight, loved ones die, abuse is overlooked. As Christians, We were designed to love and be loved by Him. But our hearts are naturally bent to hate God and love sin. We can expect that this will disrupt our life because it isn’t how God originally intended us to live.

The more surprised we are by evil’s impact on humanity, the more suffering we will endure. This sounds rather hopeless. But it doesn’t end there. While we fight our internal tendencies towards sin, we have full assurance that Christ has already removed the power sin has over us. The bad things we experience will not last.

This unshakeable person we’re describing must expect evil to run its course but understand that its course will surely end. As children get hurt, they don’t have the ability to know that their suffering will eventually subside. Certainly as adults, we can empathize with their plight. We feel as though this period of life we’re in will never end.

Will God never hear my prayer? Will I ever be free of this weight I’m carrying?

When we’re right in the middle of going through something, it is difficult to see the end of it. If we know our anguish were to end, it would make it so much more bearable. With Christ’s suffering on our behalf, we know that even the most vile injustice will be redeemed (Romans 8:28).

We’re still not quite to our full definition of this unshakable figure. They cannot just know that their suffering will end, but there must be something beautiful on the other side. Otherwise, we’d be no different than the stoic who braces for impact.

Expectation of our joys

What do we believe is on the other side of our present troubles? This entirely depends on who we believe God to be. Let us see what God has revealed to us already. Through the scriptures, we can see God’s covenantal love persist through generations of human failure and then accomplished through the perfect life of His Son, Jesus. Death was defeated. The power of sin over our lives was eradicated.

There is a record of Him fulfilling His promises so that we can reasonably conclude that He will continue throughout our lives too. This radically impacts our lives if we believe this to be true. The Christian has every reason to anticipate that the best things in life are surely to come. We can hope, or expect, that God will finish what He has started.

This is wonderful, but wouldn’t this put us right back where we started? We’re now still hoping to be in the next phase of life– “one more day closer to glory,” right? Although we’re perhaps happier and more resistant to suffering than before, we’re still not living content in the moment. Perhaps we’re more absent than before.

I believe this unshakable person must understand that their pain will be redeemed, their future is secure but also that there is purpose in their present. Otherwise, they would buckle down and simply wait for their eternal state of glory. But if Christ died for our future, surely there is meaning for our time spent on earth.

Psalm 46:1 speaks of God being a “present hope.” We can live to expect trials in life, and even hope for a brighter future. But maybe a much more difficult task is to expect good things in our present circumstances.

God didn’t merely create us to suffer through sin and wait for Heaven. He made us so that we could delight in Him. To see Him in the myriads of ways He shows up around us.

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We cannot expect something or someone to behave a certain way if we don’t know who they are. In the same way, we cannot expect God to be good if we haven’t spent enough time with Him to know this of His character. We can hear that someone has a good reputation, but it’s difficult to truly trust in someone if we haven’t found those things to be true for ourselves.

Someone who is unshakeable has tasted God’s goodness, not just heard about it or seen it from a distance. They know that pain in life is sure to come, but they know it won’t last. This person doesn’t just hope for the future with God, they are living with Him in their present. They’re waiting to see what God will do right now.

They don’t hope in the way we say “I hope it rains today.” They hope in an expectant way. This is what grounds them when the earth begins to shake.

Timothy Keller says it best in his book on Prayer:

“Our bad things will turn out for good (Rom 8:28), Our good things can never be taken away from us (Ps 4:6–7), and the best things are yet to come (1 Cor 2:9).”

This changes the core of who we are. It reorients our identity. When we’re this unshakable person, it colors how we experience our joys and sufferings. Our circumstances do not change who we are but they may shape our worship. We don’t need to rush to the next stage because we’re preoccupied with noticing where God is showing up at that moment. Because when we don’t need life to go a certain way, we’re free to enjoy it more. We’re free to be still.

If we’re expecting God to be good in both our present and future, I wonder how much our life would change.

Perhaps many of us feel this way with various facets of our life. Maybe we feel pigeon-holed in our career, or we’re in limbo waiting for a medical diagnosis. We’re exhausted. Not only this, we feel alone. Because sometimes we can mistake God’s silence for His avoidance. He doesn’t always answer us in the way we would hope. This forces us to reconcile our true thoughts about His character.

As Christians, we understand that God’s omnipotence and omniscience is meant to shape how we live in the unknown. Believing He is supreme doesn’t automatically produce a response of trust. This truth can only give us comfort if we also know Him to be a good and loving God. If He is simply all-knowing and all-powerful, trusting Him would be nearly impossible. Our view of God impacts how we view His silence. If He is to be trusted, perhaps His silence can also.

Consider a time in our life where we’ve experienced deep pain. Our sorrows are too great to be explained away. There is no word of comfort which can take away the reality we’re living in. God doesn’t rush us to “get over it.” He sits with us in it so that we are not alone to endure it.

When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the One who holds his hand. – Psalm 37:24

The visualization of God reaching for our hand is so tender. It implies not only closeness but security. He won’t allow us to “be hurled headlong.” We know we will fall–but, we will never fall out of His hands. This is not a conditional security as we might know it in a human circumstance. No matter how we treat Him, He will never abandon us. He doesn’t slip His hand away when we slight Him or turn His back when we ignore Him. Our devotion to God is not a prerequisite to His faithfulness to us.

In our early days of dating, Sunny joined me on a doctor’s visit. I had recently been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. I brought all my anxiety and questions to the medical expert. Unfortunately, her bedside manner was lacking. She didn’t ease my fears, she gave life to them. I held back my emotion while I felt it rise to the surface. Suddenly, I felt an open hand softly land on my thigh and warmly enclose my hand. Sunny’s presence immediately anchored me. It felt scary, but I didn’t feel alone.

This not only illustrates how God responds to us in the midst of our discomfort, but also how He might love us through others. Whether it’s through a warm hug from a loved one, an understanding gaze from a stranger, or the unexpected snuggle from a pet–God isn’t limited to who He can use. His love is felt all around us, perhaps we just haven’t been looking for it.

As I sit writing this, my ache still feels heavy in my chest holding the weight of my unanswered prayers. Many of my desires seem holy and good, and what God would want too. It can seem like an oversimplification to pacify my discomfort with the fact that I am not alone to endure it. But this would be to deny the life changing impact of who this Presence is. God is not merely a chummy friend standing by my side, but He holds the very answers to my plight. His presence is an answer to my prayer. He is not just the good in life, He is life. And He is all I need. Even if I don’t always feel it.

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If our petitions become expectations for God, they can obscure our blessings. I am not waiting for good to happen in my life, God is giving it to me right now. All that I need, I have. Yet, I need to remind myself, He is enough. There are countless blessings which I am experiencing right now.

There are times where I sense a small sliver of His insurmountable love. As a wave which crashes over me, it disperses a moment later. It’s almost as if I get a split-second view of the back of His head–a joy which simply cannot be explained or properly articulated.

I still long for God to answer my requests. He does not shame me for wanting them, nor does He rush me in mourning the weight of them.

Jesus is well acquainted with what it feels like to cry out to God but not get the answer we want. In the Garden of Gethesame, Jesus’ body is in such distress that He’s actually sweating blood. It’s an extremely rare condition called hematidrosis, there are only a handful of recorded cases of this happening. This points to not only His very real, human bodily experiences but also his knowledge of what was to happen to Him.

My relationship with God is tempered by my sin. But Jesus’ relationship with Him is not. It’s perfect. There is no beginning nor end to Them. They have always been in a loving communion together. With this in mind, imagine what Jesus must have been experiencing knowing that He was to be abandoned by God. I’m certain that there is no human term to accurately describe the stress He was under.

Surely, Jesus had perfect desires. In deep agony, He cries out to God and begs Him to not make Him go through this. Jesus knows that God can do whatever He wants, He could make anything possible. But God denies Jesus’ request. Jesus must take the cup. He must be our sacrifice.

Jesus knows what it is like to have God not answer His prayers in the way He wanted. Yet, He still chooses to suffer on our behalf. He faces true abandonment by God so that we don’t have to. He does not simply sit with us in our sorrows, He empathizes with us. This is the Presence we have. If God sent His only Son so that we might commune with Him, there is good reason to hope that He will not forget us in our suffering.

I think we must confront our age, whether old or young or somewhere in between. Because aging serves a purpose. God didn’t accidentally make us expireable. We are made for a specific period of time on earth. If we pay attention to these slow signs of aging, they tell us something. Though our bodies decay, the choices we make have eternal implications. We are given the gift of time where we are free to use it however we would like.

Questions are often asked, “what sort of person do you want to be?” The issue with this is that we are already making unconscious decisions which very much determine who we are in this present moment. We are who we are. The small habits of our day form into who we become as a person. We’re training our mind, body, and spirit whether we’re aware of it or not. Repeated thoughts and actions become habits which pave a well-trodden pathway in our brain. If we have any desire to change, we must pay attention to our mindless activity. We cannot remove an undesirable action without replacing it with something else.

Danielle Joyce in her recent article, Stop taking “every” thought captive, insightfully puts it like this:

“By looking beyond ourselves, towards that which is eternal, and walking alongside God, we may not only wash away existing negative thoughts, but fill our cup with so much goodness that there is decreasing room for new ones to fit in.”

Each moment, we either continue our former path or make a conscious transaction to veer towards another. What we do with our time matters.

In Seattle, I had an excellent therapist named Dong. During one session, I was giving all sorts of excuses for my behavior. I knew exactly what he would say. I knew exactly what I was doing wrong. And yet, why was it so difficult to stop? He began to explain to me the impacts of having integrity. It felt like an odd word to bring up in our discussion, but I leaned in. Integrity is upholding our core values or beliefs no matter the circumstances. So that the more integrity we inhabit, the more our convictions will stay with us despite the unpredictability of life.

It sounds simple and obvious, but it’s an incredibly challenging concept in practice. The choices we make expose our true convictions. How does our belief system change our day-to-day life? Or put another way, is our day-to-day life revealing our true belief system?

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We can often get smothered by the minutia of our Christian life. Even our spiritual disciplines can become a form of habit rather than devotion. Maybe the gospel-centered life is far less complex than we’ve made it. Time flies, and our impressive resumes seem to only stretch us further into exhaustion. No matter what we do, it never seems to be enough.

Romans 7:15 understands our plight, “for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” After all, ever since the Fall our natural inclination is to be our own gods, to determine our own future and save ourselves. We naturally hate God because He defies our desires to run our own life. Following Him then isn’t easy but it is far more simple.

As Christians, we know that our performance doesn’t prove our value. We are no more loved based on the state of our record. However, we choose how much of His love we get to experience by the choices we make. This is the invitation from Christ, to draw us from what might deplete us so that we might see what we were created for.

God designed us to enjoy Him–not in a theoretical sense where we’re intentionally obtuse toward the complexity of life. We are able to enjoy Him in all aspects of life, the bitter, sweet, and mundane. We’re often blind to how rich this truth really is. This is in part because most of us have only just begun to get to know Him. Perhaps some of us only know things about Him.

We aren’t forced to know Him, as a contractual relationship obliged to fulfill our end of the deal. There is a contract which Jesus already made amends for, He’s accomplished our end. We only must enjoy the reality of what He has done for us.

The more we enjoy Him, the more we see how we are made like Him. We understand that we were made for much, much more than this. As we grow more to love Him, we grow more like Him. We begin to care more about what He does. And as we resist our natural inclination to resist Him, the more we will wonder why we resisted Him at all.

This is just the beginning. We’re traversing the prelude of an eternal symphony of His beauty. We don’t need to hold the weight of proving our existence nor feel as though our time here is meaningless. It’s a gift. It’s a chance to build something which will not crumble over time. Unlike our naturally fading bodies, we can build something which overcomes the grave.

Our time is a gift which we can open again and again with each new day. I wonder what we will have built by the time our bodies find our eternal home with Christ?

During a lull, this topic was brought up. Many phrases end up in church, such as: “a heart problem” or “walking in a season of (fill in the blank)” and “giving it to God.” For anyone who has been in the church for some time, this language can easily slip out of our mouth. I still catch myself saying or writing it.

The reason I try to avoid this isn’t that there is something necessarily untrue about them, but I challenge the idea that we really understand the words we’re saying. We can use these spiritual isms to mask the depth of our emotions. Worse, we can even spiritually weaponize them to benefit us in some way. Perhaps in the name of privacy, we seclude the messier parts of our lives to appear more put together than we really are.

Masking an uncomfortable subject

It’s easy to soften or mask a difficult truth with Christian language. For example, we might find it easier to tell a friend that we’re “in a season of difficulty” rather than relay we’re walking through depression, or chronic pain we’re tired of re-explaining. We don’t always feel comfortable being vulnerable with everyone, and we shouldn’t. Not everyone is meant to be in our personal corner. But I wonder if some of us have made our corners too small.

Generalizing our life makes authenticity much more difficult. The result? Abuse gets tucked away. Grief is swallowed alone in the dark. Joy is tempered down. And we’re slowly feeling the effects of this. In the West, people are lonelier and more anxious than ever before. The church is not exempt from this, we just use Christian slogans for it.

We cannot have true accountability without being open about the things we’re struggling with. So we push through it on our own, because it’s less messy that way. And really, accountability costs us something we don’t naturally want to invest in. This is when sin patterns are neatly buttoned up, masked behind our Christian expressions.

Deflecting a difficult conversation

But what happens when someone comes to us with a difficult topic? We may be asked difficult questions about God or responding to someone’s deep rooted grief. We’re quick to quip, “just give it to God.” It’s clean, simple and essentially true. It isn’t wrong to do this, but it’s often a deflection. We are usually well-intentioned–what if we genuinely don’t know how to answer someone?

Perhaps we’re asked a question which makes us squirm in our seats. Maybe because we’d rather avoid this prickly conversation or we may not know the answer ourselves. Or maybe we think we’ll mess up our response.

There’s this facade of presentation which we inwardly feel we need to standardize too. As if our doubts of God could compromise the validity of the Gospel. Knowing all the right answers isn’t a prerequisite to being known by God. The questioning of our faith is meant to build deeper intimacy as we move closer to Him for the answers. It’s not wrong to point them to Christ so long as we don’t allow it to excuse ourselves from the conversation.

We may be afraid to admit we may be asking the same questions ourselves. But is this maybe the most relatable and healthy response we could have? We can admit that although we doubt His character, we can unite in our exploration for what those answers might be.

Another common usage of this term is when a friend is enduring a great deal of pain. Many times, sorrow doesn’t have a neat answer. We can point them to Christ, or we can sit with them and be Christ’s hands and feet with them. Our friend can feel the warmth of Jesus’ arms around us through our embrace. Through the Holy Spirit inside us, they can feel His presence in us.

This is incredibly difficult practice for us because it makes us uncomfortable. We don’t enjoy not having the answers and it isn’t pleasant to sit in someone else’s pain. But that isn’t the point. In fact, in both these instances we’ve made our faith more about our appearance of holiness and less about reflecting Christ in our lives. Serving others in this way isn’t about us. It’s a sacrifice. One that we don’t see an immediate gratification for. But isn’t this the example Christ left us when He came to serve and not be served?

We’re often afraid to enter into the messy parts of life. To relay what’s really going with us. To admit we don’t have all the answers. To sit in silence with a weeping friend. When we stay surface level, we see surface level love. We aren’t equipped to handle sin that is shadowing our life or questions we cannot answer. God wants us to ask Him. He wants us to admit our deep need for Him so that we see just how deep His grace goes. There isn’t one detail of life we go through which He is not sovereign over. He does not leave us alone in it.

So, what do we do when these Christian phrases roll right off our tongue? My husband catches me all the time. It is so ingrained in me.

I’m trying to slow down what I say. What is this phrase really saying? And how is it meant to change us? One helpful thing I’ve been trying to incorporate is imagine saying something to someone who didn’t grow up in the church. Words like “surrender,” “heart problem,” or “striving” usually generalize something which we may need to spend longer explaining.

This practice is time-consuming and can feel challenging but it’s well worth it. We may even get an opportunity to see something about God we didn’t realize. Or not rush through a conversation we would have otherwise missed.

There is so much richness to be found in the words we fling around in the church. When we tease out the meanings, the truth of the gospel becomes more beautiful everyday.

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My previous ideology failed to consider that the goodness of God’s character is not restricted to His people. In fact, James 1:17 reminds us that “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above.” All good things come from God, regardless if we acknowledge it or not. Because it is His very nature to be giving of Himself. He doesn’t hoard His love, He shares it.

From time to time, we see beauty which catches our breath. We feel it while watching sunrise pouring between the trees, framing our morning walk. There’s a sense of awe that we can’t quite explain. It’s as if our body knows something our mind is incapable of putting words to. We are drawn into something. We feel invited to participate in something we somehow already feel a part of. A smile naturally formulates on our face as a sense of deepened peace washes over our body.

Joy. We feel joy.

We feel God whether we source it back to Him or not.

Truly, this is how God woos us to Himself to begin with. How else would we have found Him if it weren’t for being compelled by what He has done in our life? When we receive wedding invitations, often the letter hints the theme of the big day. In the same way, the most beautiful treasures on earth are simply the invitation note to His love. We can only wonder what beauty will be found when untethered by a world run by sin and death.

This joy we experience is evidence of His presence. It gives us a glimpse into not only who God is but who we are. When we long for a sweet moment to never end, it reveals our eternal nature. We were made for so much more than to merely enjoy a string of fleeting moments. This is one way we see evidence of God’s glory around us, as described in Psalm 19:1-6.

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;

And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Day to day pours forth speech,

And night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

Their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth,

And their utterances to the end of the world.

In them He has placed a tent for the sun,

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber;

It rejoices as a strong man to run his course.

Its rising is from one end of the heavens,

And its circuit to the other end of them;

And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

Nature is trying to tell us something. Without words, it daily declares the glory of God. He leaves us evidence of His presence all around us so that we might know Him–or for the Christian–to know Him deeper. In a secular worldview, the joys we experience here are perhaps the closest we will ever feel God’s love.

We cannot deny the evil that lives among us. It wasn’t how God originally designed us to live. It feels wrong because it is wrong. The secular response may be to rise above an injustice, to accept the state of being, or put justice in our own hands. These are all noble and seemingly right counters. However, there are some inequities which can never be made right.

Today, more than ever, the grotesque evils of the world are more widely visible. God doesn’t overlook it, or pretend it doesn’t exist. Even Jesus’ resurrected body still held His scars. He doesn’t dismiss the sorrow, injustice and evil in the world, He will one day redeem it.

If the gospel is true, what it says about who God is and who we are in relation to Him is utterly life changing. Jonathan Edwards famously describes Christian happiness as knowing that bad things will turn out for good; good things can never be taken away from us; and the best things are yet to come.

Our joys and sorrows will alter our lives but never change our future. It isn’t only felt in an ethereal walk in the woods, but transcends even the darkest or mundane times of our life. Christian joy is complex because it holds both grief and joy without changing the circumstances but facing them directly. The most secure joy we will find is when we face the realities of our circumstances. And this changes everything.

Lately, I’ve been allowing this truth to permeate my life in small ways. My natural tendency is to avoid enjoyment for fear of losing it. But I’ve slowly come to understand that I’m missing the point. I’m putting too much weight on each joy, as if it is supposed to sustain me. Instead of anxiously holding each joy, as if I could break it if I squeezed it too much–I’m opening my hand.

It’s a small shift, but an important one. This has freed me to enjoy life for what it is and be more present in each moment. Each time, it gives me a chance to look up and think, “wow, God, You did this for me?”

It’s beautiful. When one joy ends, another will come along another day. And then another. They will never end, from this life into the next.

The same applies for darker days. When a wave of grief hits me, the truth of the gospel comforts me in a way that nothing else can. God isn’t rushing me “to get over it.” He weeps with me. I grieve knowing that while this pain is real, I’m only seeing a sentence in a chapter of a much larger story.

Sometimes, God doesn’t remove us from difficulties. Yet He never leaves us in them to endure it alone. He is with us, reminding us that while everything in our world may crumble, He will make all things right.

Joys are much sweeter and grief is less bitter when we remind ourselves of this liberating truth. There is a kind of mysterious peace which grows inside us. It doesn’t bend to our circumstances, but rises above them. What if we were to live like the gospel is really true?

Though the days are long and cold, my mind does stay

Ruminating on what can never depart

Joy fills my lungs and sings on replay

Soaking each beautiful note into my heart

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Full disclaimer: I am not a theologian, nor have I attended seminary. I’m not writing this as an expert but rather sharing my pedestrian perspective–as I do for much of my writing. My hope is to bring my readers along for the journey as I examine this matter more. I’d rather not shy away from a difficult subject because of any perceived disqualifications. They are important to discuss and I believe should be all the more discussed in an open context.

I struggled quietly with questioning my faith for years. There were times when I voiced them to others, they would respond with trouble looks and a pitying tilted head. I could feel the switch in their tone. Doubting God is often taboo in the church, but it shouldn’t be.

That said, I have much empathy for anyone who finds difficulty understanding the Bible. There’s a mystery to it which leaves both the new and sage Christian in continual awe and wonder. One way this gets especially confusing is when we pick out portions of it and attempt to decipher them independent of the broader story. Much like our own life, the current moment of our story can feel chaotic and meaningless. But, if we are able to step back some, we might be able to trace the thread of meaning throughout.

The lives of Bible characters are told without softening words or disclaimers. It is completely culturally contrary to our present day–particuarlly in the West. We find it difficult to relate to them. And frankly, we don’t always need to. I find myself reading the Bible to find out what it says about me. But that’s quite missing the point of it. The Bible isn’t a self-help book–it’s a collection of stories from humanity’s continual failings and God’s enduring love despite it.

In God’s triune character, He has always been loved and worshipped. He made us so that we might partake in this eternal exchange which Michael Reeves describes as the “dance of love” creation joins in. God doesn’t need us to be God. He doesn’t need our worship nor our love. Our existence is for our enjoyment of Him.

But if God is so perfect, why does the Bible feel so tumultuous? When sin entered the world, it distorted our view of God. We want to be our own gods and determine what is good for ourselves. Since God made us in His image, we are meant for His love. Which means we’ll be continually frustrated by the futile attempts to make sense of the world without Him. This is seen all throughout the Bible. Story after story, people choose the love of others or status or money above God. In that pursuit, they find much suffering.

We may be tempted to harshly judge some of the characters God chooses to use in the Bible. David was an adulterer and murderer. Rahab was a prostitute. Moses was a murderer. Jonah wanted a whole nation to burn. Peter denied God. Saul spent much of his life persecuting Christians. Yet, God includes many of these people to be the lineage for His Son Jesus.

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Thank God the Bible is full of messy characters because we are no less messy. It proves that there is no amount of evil which cannot be redeemed. Many horrible accounts are recorded in the Old Testament. They aren’t meant to be examples for how we ought to live, but a testament to the lengths God will go for us. Even in our disobedience, we never botch His story.

This is fine in theory but much more difficult in practice. We are often faced with the reality of reconciling what we believe with our lived circumstances. No matter how mature one is in their faith, it’s not only natural to face them but essential to our Christian growth. We aren’t meant to bury our concerns while carrying on as if nothing is wrong. No. Our inevitable wrestlings with God’s character is designed to inch us closer to Him, not further away.

Jesus is often recorded in the Bible listening and reasoning with those who had hesitations towards Him. He invites those who doubted while witnessing His miracles. How much more would He welcome our questions in this present day.

If we fail to see God’s goodness, it doesn’t make God any less good. But it does impact our life. God doesn’t force us to love Him. He is not pushy or needy. But He deeply desires for us to know Him. Which is why He made the ultimate sacrifice with His Son Jesus. There was no other way for sin and death to be abolished. Jesus did what we could not. We now have the freedom to know Him without the burden of perfection.

The Old and New Testament work together to show God’s covenantal love for us. We each have a choice as to what character we will be within His story. Will we explore the mystery of His character, finding the thread of His grace woven throughout the Bible?

Following this line of thinking, I thought that God’s gifts wouldn’t really be that good. Because, if holiness was suffering, then good things must feel bad. I remember trying to “trick the system” by willing myself to not really want something–as if I could fool my mind or even pull one over God.

In an attempt to not make an idol out of desiring something, I tried to manipulate God into doing what I wanted. I wasn’t surrendering my idol to God, I was masking it.

Before I pierced my ears, sticker earrings used to be the coolest accessory. I was gifted with a huge, 100-piece set for a birthday one year. There were so many options to choose from. Overcome with excitement, I stashed it away for “another day.” Many years later, I found the sticker earrings in a box. A box which collected dust instead of memories. Nearly every single set was still there. My now pierced ears had no use for them, even if the glittery shapes were age-appropriate. I was slowly restricting myself from enjoyment of life.

The concept of God wanting to give me good gifts was nearly non-existent. My head was buried in the sand figuring out the formula to be a good person. It wasn’t always so that I could know or enjoy God more. Often, it was to get what I wanted.

As I got older, my life began to spiral downward, and so did my theology. I didn’t believe that God wanted good things for me anymore. A god like that couldn’t be trusted. A god like that couldn’t possibly love me.

I was missing the entire point. My focus was so centered on what I could retrieve from God that I didn’t realize I had pushed Him aside in the process. I had so contorted Him in my mind that I could no longer recognize His voice. Silence followed. I could no longer hear Him because I was running away.

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It took many grueling years to untangle this version of God I had crafted. Even after re-constructing my faith, I continually struggle with my original view of God. Does He really want good for me?

This lie about God’s character has the potential to be incredibly destructive. The moment I neglect to rebuttal it with the truth, I give it allegiance to wreak havoc in my life. It shields me from enjoying God.

I don’t believe that enjoying God means that we are always happy. The word “enjoyment” feels unattainable. And really, that’s completely unrealistic. Life isn’t always joyful. The Bible is full of realistic stories, never cowering away from the complexities and difficulties of life. Instead, it shows God’s presence through them. He may be a comfort to us one day and a source of joy the next.

For those of us who have unanswered prayers–even very godly requests–this is incredibly difficult to reconcile.

We don’t want Him to comfort us, we want a baby.

We don’t want encouragement, we want our family members to know Jesus.

We don’t want counsel, we want a stable income.

But, when we’re preoccupied with what we want from God, we miss what He’s already given us. No matter how much we know, we’ll never be omniscient. We simply won’t know how every thread in all humanity will be woven together into a tapestry of His goodness.

What can be done? This is what makes community so important, so that we can encourage each other when we can’t believe for ourselves. It’s why we memorize scripture so that our minds instruct us (Psalm 16:7) when we’re quiet. This is why journaling our prayers is so special–we get to remember all the ways God has provided for us before. It’s why reading the scriptures, over and again, can remind us of how He’s never failed His promises all throughout history.

When we do this, our minds shift. If we look for God’s goodness, we’ll find it. It’s hidden in the morning song of the birds perched outside our window. It’s in the unexpected coffee chat with a neighbor down the street. It’s in the aroma of caramelized onions sizzling on the stove. It’s in the first breath of our waking day.

These gifts are just the beginning. There are so many more for us to notice. Even if we were to begin to count them, we’d still miss countless more.

I used to know God as a commander who demanded a life of misery; now I know Him as my Father who invites me to a life of freedom. The more I get to know Him, the simpler knowing Him becomes. I’m barely beginning to understand just how wonderful He really is.

Something inside me is growing. I can feel it.

There’s a stillness replacing the anxious swirl in my body. Slowly, so very slowly, I’m seeing that His worth is mine. I’m finding that His gifts are meant to be opened and used and not locked in a closet for another day which never arrives. God wants good things for me.

This is a tad vulnerable, to be honest. Accepting good gifts means being open for them to be taken from me. It means holding it open in my hands, enjoying it for the moment it’s there.

Enjoying what God gives us now is an act of trust that there isn’t a time limit to His goodness. His good gifts take different shapes and lengths of time. Each one is meant to draw us deeper into Himself. It’s the beautiful mystery of knowing Him. We get to experience not only the depth of His love but the newness of it.

We don’t need to hoard God’s love like I did with my sticker earrings, anxious that it will one day run out. While His goodness is new every day, it is never any less good than before.

For obvious reasons, it was scary for a 5-year-old child to feel they may be whisked up into the sky and never seen again. Looking back, those memories are strangely fond.

I drank too much coffee yesterday, so my mind raced while I tossed in bed fighting sleep. For whatever reason, these memories popped into my mind. I wondered why in the world I would have a positive association with them. Suddenly, it all became very clear.

Crammed in that little closet was a family who loved each other. Maybe someone was annoyed with someone two minutes prior to the alarm sounding. Or, perhaps arguing about something petty. The storm put things into perspective. No matter what differences we had with one another, we were reminded of what mattered most. We were each other’s most important people right then. Packed like sardines, we cracked jokes and tried to distract from the howling wind outside.

Moments like this are precious. They force us to reconcile with what’s most important. We see more clearly how much we really love and appreciate the people we live daily life with.

With the passage of time, dynamics have changed and so much is different now. I don’t think I would ever have believed my younger self if I told her I would one day cherish those times as much as I do. But, that’s the funny thing about life. We mostly don’t recognize the value in each moment. They simply slip through our fingers and fade over time. We see it through the harsh lens of our expectations; which mischievously masks the beauty of our present.

I’ve written about memories before. They are powerful tools which can be used to savor the present or debilitate us into living in what we’ll never get back.

Stories like this motivate me to “live more in the moment.” But if I’m not too careful, it can lead to forcing good moments instead of living in them.

I love it when people are together, having fun and enjoying one another. Whether it’s family, a group of friends who feel like family, or a gaggle of unexpected friendships. It truly gives me so much joy seeing love shared. These aren’t wrong desires. In fact, I’m quite sure this is a holy longing which comes straight from our Father who forever enjoys a Trinitarian fellowship. But, these sweet moments of communion cannot be manufactured. I cannot force happy memories or friendships to occur.

Jesus’ ministry was vast, but He never forces Himself on anyone. He lets them choose to come to Him. People are drawn to Him because He doesn’t need anything from anyone. Jesus isn’t a whiney ruler, begging for praise and attention. He simply loves unconditionally and the crowds flock out of curiosity. Jesus demonstrates for us ultimate we ought to live and love.

If I don’t emulate Jesus in this way, these holy desires of building fellowship will turn in on me. I’ll quickly manipulate a situation for an outcome I believe is good. All the while, fully missing out on the people I’m supposedly loving. My good intentions will blind me into believing I’m only trying to help. I’ll become defensive as soon as anyone challenges my methods. Feeling like a frustrated saint, persecuted for “doing the right thing,” I’ll eventually succumb to self-pity.

Now, I’m only halfway present–part critic and part participant. Expectations fly high and disappointment usually follows. Organic, sweet moments fly right by me. I don’t see them anymore because I’m too busy fixing a situation which was never broken.

This all sounds pretty depressing. But, it’s the natural progression of any good thing which we deem more important than the Giver. The idea that I’m loving God by loving His people is utterly buried under my attempts to fabricate a happy memory. How did things go so terribly awry?

To answer this, we must return to Jesus. His ministry has many twists and turns, but His countenance is steady. Notice that He leaves the crowd many times to go into the mountains to pray. He isn’t simply getting alone time, He’s returning to His Father where all His needs are satisfied. He doesn’t have a work quota for the amount of sermons to share or people to heal. Jesus doesn’t compulsively love others, it’s a natural response.

I don’t need to worry about loving other people if my sole focus is loving God. It will follow as naturally as water trickles down a living spring. Beautiful moments will unfold organically, not when I need them to. If I don’t look to others to give me what I believe I need to be happy, then I’ll be able to experience moments as they are. The mundane, frustrating, beautiful, humorous, puzzling–I will take them as they come.

I wish I were writing this out of a well of deep experience, having looked back only to tell the story of where I had arrived. I’m afraid that I’m back in the beginning, continually struggling to appreciate the present. But, when I do practice the beautiful work of enjoying a holy God, I discern an inkling of how His love works. And I wonder how I ever lived any other way.

I can look back with gratitude at memories like being huddled up with my family, waiting out a storm. Knowing God’s purpose in all things, I can be at peace with the past, live fully in my present, and be confident in my future.

Now, I suppose I’ll have to remind myself of this truth everyday.

We’re dependent people. No matter how much we resist this, defeat in varying forms always finds us. Our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs persist. They remind us of our fragile humanity.

There’s a seemingly opposing tension rising within us. In the same breath, we feel deeply needy but also incomplete. We feel an internal purpose much larger than ourselves. There’s a greatness we want to accomplish but it is never fully attainable.

There is so much more to life. The world is brimming with possibility. All around us whispers hope. If only we could be who we really want to be. What is holding us back?

We either pick apart our efforts, point to our circumstances, or shift blame towards our current culture. No matter who we deflect responsibility for this disconnect, we’re left with making sense of it on our own. We feel deeply that we are made for something greater.

As Christians, we would agree with this fact. Cognitively, we know that this leads us to deeper intimacy with Christ. But in reality, many of us find ourselves with the same secular struggle. Our neediness is a source of frustration, not joy.

Perhaps, some of us have known God for many years. At what point does our neediness not let us down? When do we start to feel this peace which many speak of but few of us truly resonate with? The sharp edges cuts us with the truth we’d rather not face: our sanctification is ongoing.

I feel this tension even now. This week has been nonstop for me. Really, many weeks have looked like this. It feels like my ink is running dry. Endless thoughts coursing through my mind. Yet, both my mind and page are blank. I’m progressively running thin.

After a nearly sleepless night, I woke up at 3am to catch an early flight to Denver. Those cheap, early flights always sound more appealing at check-out. It’s more than worth it for a long overdue trip to see my sister. It so happened that she won’t arrive in Denver until later in the afternoon, leaving the whole day to myself. This turned out to be a hidden gift for me. A whole day, with no plans.

I took a glorious 20-minute walk to a nearby coffee shop to catch up on some writing. This time in Denver is absolutely delicious. A gentle breeze meets the soft glow of the sun. The sweet fragrance of blooms linger in the air. It’s my idea of a perfect, Spring day.

I settled into my writing corner at the cafe. One latte and green tea later, I could feel my fatigue advancing. It was time to take my own advice and head back for a nap. On the way back, I let my mind wander.

What does it mean to put our beliefs into practice? We all feel this frustration of living in holy bodies in a broken world. We see the pieces of ‘what could be,’ shattered by our side. As Christians, we ought to see Christ’s beauty in this. That’s the point, right?

Pondering this conundrum while fast-walking toward home, I noticed an elderly couple crossing the street ahead of me. I reduced my pace in anticipation of them walking towards me. To my relief, they continued in a different direction. Wait. Why did I feel at ease knowing I would avoid a short, human interaction? It probably only would have consisted of a quick smile and “hello!”

Something in me clicked. And the truth was immediately humbling. God was interrupting me with His answer.

If I believe that achieving this greatness is all up to me, then my life will consist of endless check-points. I’ll only be as valuable as my accomplishments. Which means, my focus is on completing something. I must do this and finish that. Here is where my faulty theology finally reveals itself.

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This changes everything. Finding purpose then is less about finishing something and more about enjoying Him in the process.

God designed each of us to uniquely reflect Him. He gifts us differently so that we might know Him differently. One day, He will perfect what He’s started in us. Our work in Heaven will look nothing like our work here on earth. Now, we labor tirelessly. We feel fatigue and burnout. This is because sin and death prohibits us from fully exercising what we are made for.

Isaiah 65 describes it like this, “My chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain” (22b-22a). Our work will be a delight because we will be doing exactly what we were designed for, completely unhindered by sin and death.

Our Heavenly bodies will find satisfaction in our Heavenly duties. We don’t wait for this perfection, we’re meant to refine and sharpen them now. Just as the parable of the talents, what we do on earth will have eternal dividends.

The desire to find deeper meaning and more to life is met with the assurance that we will fully accomplish them. He promises to complete the good work He has started in us (Philippians 1:6).

We don’t need to prove our value but rather find it in the One we were made for. The act of finding it in Him is what it means to enjoy Him. This is what we’re made for. This is the longing we feel everyday. We’re longing for more, because we’re designed to be fully in communion with God. We’re longing for Him.

Since He created us so different, we get to see different aspects of His character all around us. We see Him through others and His creation.

There is freedom when we believe what God says about Himself– holy and righteous. But also what He says about His children–holy, as He is. The calling we feel inside our soul is purposeful.

When our ink runs dry and fatigue sets in, might we see what we’re working towards? Can we catch glimpses of His goodness along the way? Perhaps, this is where we find this mysterious peace we keep hearing about.

The Spring air breathes new life into our redemptive bodies, now named with Love instead of shame. So we see that our response to God’s grace reveals how we feel about Him and ourselves.

The night of the Last Supper reveals two different responses to grace from Peter and Judas. Both followed Jesus faithfully; both appeared to love Him; and both betrayed Him that night.

As the night unfolds, one repents and the other recoils. Two egregious actions with contrasting outcomes.

Peter was one of Jesus’ closest friends, and it didn’t preclude him from being capable of disowning Him when Jesus needed him the most. Judas’ dedication to Jesus masked his avoidant heart towards Him.

Despite this, Jesus’ love for them never waned–no matter how unfaithful they were to Him.

Through their stories we understand that our outward devotion to God can mask our internal posture towards Him. What might we learn from Peter and Judas’ view of Jesus that night?

Peter’s passion for Christ

It’s been long observed that Peter was a man full of passion, never doing anything half-way. He adamantly professed his loyalty to Jesus that night.

Matthew 26:33 recounts him saying, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away.” A few verses down, we see his fervor sizzled and replaced with an equally vibrant rejection of Christ. Verse 74 describes it, “Then he began to curse and swear, “I do not know the man!”

The consequences of knowing Jesus were too great for Peter. Suddenly, every miracle and display of Jesus’ power dissipated from his mind. Fear entered instead. How quickly his heart turned against Jesus. And how quickly we see that ours run cold as well.

Perhaps some of us have been walking with Jesus for some time. The longevity of our history with Him can elude us into believing we’ve earned a certain status. And with this, an immunity to types and depths of sin. Though we know that God has ultimate control over our life, when our circumstances feel uncertain, our trust is tested.

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Peter’s faith in Jesus was tried before this. On another dark night, he was tossed in the sea on a boat. Matthew 14:29-32 captures the event when he walked out on the violent waters towards Jesus in a dramatic act of faith. As soon as his eyes ventured from Jesus’, Peter slipped into the sea.

When our eyes turn from Jesus, the chaos of this world can overwhelm us. We want to run, or grasp for control. As Peter, our passion for Christ is easily swayed.

This is what brought Peter to a repentant posture in Matthew 26:75. He was grieved by his sin, but never swallowed by it. His attention was not on his own fickle heart, but on Christ.

Although we continually fail, God waits patiently for us to come back to Him. It’s His love which invites us back in, not our good behavior. The moment we rely on our own performance, shame will consume us, as it did for Judas.

Judas’ faithfulness to Christ

The disciples were shocked to hear that one of them would betray Jesus. No one noticed an obviously disingenuous person in the room. Judas appeared as devout as any of them. Long before he accepted gold coins for Jesus’ capture, Judas was inwardly distant towards Him.

The gospel of Mark recounts the story of the woman who anointed Jesus with costly perfume before the Last Supper. Judas’ true view of Jesus was perhaps the most visible during this event. He could not see the value in the woman’s sacrifice towards Jesus because of his own distorted view of Him.

Judas wasn’t likely an evil person. He probably carried many genuinely good qualities. Regardless of his good intentions, his service to Jesus’ ministry was contractual. He was willing to follow Jesus so long as He became the king he desired and received the benefits which he felt deserving of. Perhaps it was his love of money or desire for a position of power which Judas was ultimately seeking. In any case, he wasn’t drawn to Jesus so much as what he could get out of Him.

Jesus didn’t come on earth to rule over others but to serve them. Judas didn’t understand this. It didn’t fit in with his idea of who God should be. He wasn’t loving Jesus, but an idealized version of Him.

When his betrayal came to light, all that was left was a man shriveled up by the guilt of his sin. His identity was swallowed by his failures instead of grace.

Judas didn’t know Jesus’ heart to be gracious and long-lasting, but rigid and conditional. As his own love for Him. The weight of shame was too heavy for Judas to carry on his own. He couldn’t see God’s heart because he didn’t know it.

As Judas, we can idolize being a Christian rather than worshipping Christ. We don’t look to God to know Him more but to forage His good gifts. Worshipping a fictitious version of God, we feel a fictitious love from Him. We miss out on the true character of His heart and how He views us.

Christ’s love towards both Peter and Judas

Jesus knew that Peter and Judas would betray Him. He was not only disowned by them, but also by His Father. Jesus would go on to endure the greatest sacrifice ever known, or ever will be known to man. He felt God’s abandonment so that we never have to. Despite this, He washes their feet.

Jesus’ love to His disciples never shrunk back when their faith did. Their devotion was not the prerequisite to His faithfulness. Jesus embodied God’s heart when He fulfilled His covenantal love towards humanity.

On the cross, God didn’t see Jesus’ perfection. He saw our sin. Not only did Jesus carry the weight of our sin, but also our shame. While sin still marks our heart, God sees holiness. He sees Jesus. Why would God do this? He so desires that we might enjoy the gifts of communion with Him, that He made a way for us to be with Him.

Our sin is no less disgraceful no matter how hard we achieve to be worthy of His love. We can never be the perfection His holiness requires to be in fellowship with Him. And we don’t have to be. Jesus already took on our burden. Our debt is covered.

The depth of a love like this is difficult to contemplate. God’s love feels as precious as our sin feels ghastly to us. As Judas, His grace won’t compel us if we’re serving a god we’ve manufactured. We’ll be endlessly chasing our idea of perfection.

May this Easter season remind us of the incomprehensible beauty of God’s grace. Let us be as Peter, confidently depending on His steadfast love despite our continual deficiencies.

Because of Jesus, our failures will never make us less worthy of His love.

We can never outrun it.