Trash Can Gospel

How often do you find yourself thinking,

I need to deal with this issue in my life before God can use me.

Or,

I need to (read my Bible more) (pray more) (get over this sin) (trust God more) (be farther along in my walk) to GET BACK to where I need to be with God.

Have you been in a place where you are so totally aware of your own grime and tarnished exterior that you just feel like God has slipped from your reach? That the only way back into his arms is fixing that one (if you're lucky) thing?

Sometimes we struggle to create this grandiose illusion of perfection. A serene room of pure white. Every inch of it scrubbed down to a harsh, stark, hospital white. And yet in the corner we position ourselves in front of a blindingly white trash can, with an awkward, uncomfortable smile on our faces. Anyone can enter our abode, even God. This is where we invite him to enter. On our terms. To come look around, observe the cleanliness, see the accomplishments carefully affixed to the walls and every spec of dust removed. We entertain our guests here, as they welcome us into theirs. Comparing methods for purification and the recognitions adorning the surfaces.

"Oh, allow me!" As the unaccustomed visitor heads to that shadow in the corner. Oh sure, maybe every once in a while, we might let those closest to us venture over to that area of the room. But heaven forbid they look inside that receptacle.

If they truly knew what lay beneath the gleaming cover...

All would be lost.

And not Him. He cannot see that all has not been removed.

We so desperately try to convince ourselves and God that we are good. That we are deserving of grace. LOOK how I have scoured this room! You have given me the ultimate gift and here is what I have done to prove my gratitude. And to the others? SEE how my life has changed! How nothing but the brilliance of white has permeated this existence!

And so it is. That we push everyone, including our greatest Love away. The more desperately we try to hide its contents, closer we must come to the container itself, and the more enormous the divide we must create between us and those we are trying to protect from the contents.

And He. The ultimate gentleman. Will not force his way through our barricades. He will wait at the point where our fear and agony have held him.

And here is where we have missed it completely. He is not waiting for us to clean up our act. To convince him that we have made ourselves presentable. That we have taken his grace and forced our flesh to submit to a standard of holiness to the rhythm of law and religion.

Utterly broken from the exhausting task of upholding this facade, I fall. Deep into the abyss that I so drastically attempted to hide from the world. I lie crumpled in a heap amidst the perpetrator itself. My own garbage.

So immense. So daunting. I feel as though I'm drowning in its expanse. When suddenly a soft whisper navigates the chaos to my heart.

May I come in?

Not him. Please not him. I can be better! I can take care of this!

Please, may I come in?

And this is where he meets me. Not in that room, congratulating me on my progress. Not in my stubborn attempts to display my worthiness. In the darkest place. In the foulest stench of my past and present. This is where he holds me. This is where we talk. This is where light shatters the fog of condemnation and deceit.

And this is the Trash Can Gospel. Not that we can ascend to divinity and the place of glory. But that He descends to us, where we sit in our garbage.

Dismembered

(That's a dramatic way to say "torn.")

Maybe a bit over the top, yet in my brain and heart an accurate description.

Life is so incredibly busy. The line between priorities, obligations, and just plain "want-tos" bleed and blur. At any given moment, the subjects attached to the other end of the strings affixed to my heart begin to engage in aggressive tug-of-war.

I've realize how much has been entrusted to us. The responsibility to designate purpose to a whole of 86,400 seconds of each of day. Life, as an ever shifting maze of opportunity and decisive demands, makes for its own, enormous choice. For what we do with each second determines the outcome of the minute, determines the outcome of the hour, determines the outcome of the day, the year, the LIFE.

No pressure, though.

A dear friend a few nights ago challenged me to really break down my priorities. To decide and act upon the things that were truly important. As simple as this sounds, I had to take some time to contemplate. I first began by allowing the things that consistently fill my time to play in fast forward on the movie screen of my imagination. And yet, the significance for those activities was not as profound as I would have assigned .

When I finally broke it down, I had four priorities that the potential calendar of my life could filter through. It was quite different from the current reality.

Here's the kicker. I read through the Bible cover to cover in a pretty short time. This provided an amazing perspective on the overall story of the Word. Reading in the Old Testament, what command would you think God would put the most emphasis on?

Maybe things like, oh, I don't know murder? Idolatry? Covetousness?

Sabbath. That is the one discipline that is stressed throughout the ENTIRE Bible. And yet probably the most overlooked...I'm a prime example. Why does God do this? Because like a good parent, he knows that if we get tired we're gonna get cranky? Because He struggles to keep up with our constant requests, and needs a break from genie work every once in a while? Because, well, He rested on that one day and we are supposed to imitate him.

For me, I'm going with the cranky one. God made me. He knows how I roll.

Seriously, though. I have a theory. Rest is not just a grown-up "time out" thing. Rest is not a singular event. Rest is a perpetual state of being. It is in rest that we let go...and let God. A place of reflection. A place of perspective. Perspective on who we are...and ultimately who we are because of Christ. Rest is not about forcing ourselves to cease from doing what we really want to do. Rest is about being where we ultimately, deeply desire to be. To stay. And this is one of those times that God (shocker) knows what we need more than we do.

So on a surface level, the necessity to delegate some of my precious seconds to ANOTHER pursuit seems overwhelming. And yet. That's the beauty of rest. Rest is not another event. Rest is the vehicle that navigates the paths of responsibilities. Once seated in that place, the stress of time determination melts away. For in the rest, revelation falls that the pressure doesn't fall on me anymore. I switched yokes, remember?