I hate that I'm a failure; I hate that I'm never going to live up to this image of perfection I have built up in my mind. I hate that in all my striving, I won't attain it. I hate it, and yet-- I love it. Oh, the humility.
I love that He works in me. I love that He works through me. And I love that He works for me. I love that I am not great, I am not amazing, I am not perfect, but He is. I listened to a Tommy Nelson sermon this morning about Gideon, about His willingness to make a great tool from a small servant. I was incredibly encouraged to hear Mr. Nelson put it so directly:
"God does not look for great men, or great women; He looks for very defeated, humiliated, ignorant ones, who are willing to let Jesus Christ be their life, their wisdom, their righteousness, and their sovereign. That's where greatness is born from-- out of the hull of weakness."
What an important message I find so easy to miss at times. When God calls me to something big- or anything at all- what is my immediate response? I admit in shame that it is some form of doubt. In myself. And only because I've forgotten that God calls me to do something, as His hands. His vessel. It isn't from my power or strength, but His Spirit working through my life. His love becomes an outpour in my words, in my actions. And none of it is from me. How beautiful. The story of salvation is not one in which I am earning my place in heaven with how I am perfecting myself here, on earth. If that were the case, I wouldn't be "trying" anymore. There isn't an amount of "good things" I could accomplish that would cancel out the amount of times I've turned my back on Him. There are no acts of myself that could "make me right" with God. If that were the case, Christ died for nothing.
I said before that I really love the story of how God transformed Paul's life. Before God called Paul out, he was murdering His followers. Paul had the blood of God's beloved on his hands. And God said: I don't care who YOU are or what you can do, I'm God; And I'm going to use you.
And He did. Paul's testimony is incredibly real. And not because of how Paul turned his life around, got his act together, did all the right things, became perfect. No. It's amazing because God made it amazing. And Paul willingly professes just that:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
- Galatians 2:20-21
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