Who sees your messes?
A woman once commented to me about a church, “It’s a church where everyone is perfect and always smiles.”
Those words haunt me. That comment describes a church where people feel the need to be “good enough” to join. The Sunday veneer hides the messes of Monday – Saturday. No one feels safe enough to share their real struggles or even admit their brokenness.
I just completed reading Even in Our Darkness, a memoir by Jack Deere. His story goes through twists and turns of tumultuous home life as a child. Though he comes to follow Jesus in the middle of the story, he endures his demons and the darkness of tragedy. He makes this closing comment that I cannot release from my mind:
The only truly good and holy person wants to be our friend despite our messiness and all of our failed attempts to clean ourselves up.
The Gospel points us to Jesus, who calls us “friend,” despite the messiness and brokenness of our lives. We cannot dress ourselves up or perform enough daily makeovers to hide the darkness of our lives. Ultimately, the Good News of Jesus invites us to the freedom we can never experience on our own.
Along the way, people come into our lives who reflect Jesus. They see the good, bad, and ugly of our lives. They know our anger. They know the times when we puff ourselves out motivated by our insecurity. They know the real you and become even more fond of you. There grace challenges us to change more than a thousand lectures by authority people.
Has Jesus and the Gospel invaded your life in this way? Do you have people who offer you this type of grace? Have you become a person that messy people feel safe?
Who sees the messes in our lives communicates what we understand about the Gospel and ultimately we see other people through our experience of the Gospel.
Jesus calls us “friends” despite the messes. He calls us to do the same for others.
Photo by Bernard Hermant