Tonight I was given the opportunity to prove how much of a failure I am and I took it, with gusto. I mean let's face it, when I do something I like to go all in and I did tonight. It's not like it was a huge thing. I just spoke with out thinking to one of the students as I was leaving after working an 11 hour day. I was tired and moody because who wants to load groceries for 14 adults into their car in the pouring rain, not this kid.
It's so funny that this happened tonight because it's been a pretty amazing day. I got to have chapel with the ladies (one of my favorite things to do with them), had two really good advisory sessions, and enjoyed shopping for groceries. Then when I felt like my self again for the first time in days I proved the fact that I'm just a sinner pretending to be a saint.
Work demands that I be a Godly example for the students. I want to be a Godly woman because I want others to see God in me and sometimes I begin to actually believe that I've got a handle on it. That I might just be able to handle this relationship I'm trying to have with God and then I speak out of turn.
Something amazing happened when I moved here, I became a listener. I stopped talking just to talk because I realized that most of what I say is useless. But there are moments, that feel like days, where I open my mouth with out thought or consideration about what is getting ready to be unleashed on the world. I regret those moments.
It may not seem like that big of a deal to some of you, but when I spoke out to my student tonight I regressed in a big way. I set aside all that I've been doing and chose to follow my flesh. In that moment all I heard was the word "faker." I'm just a sinner trying to be a saint and I fail a lot. But the thing about that is I can't let it keep me down. We don't walk the first time we take a step, we don't ride a bike with out getting a few scrapes. It's a process. (It seems like everything is currently a process in my life.) I can't just wake up in a new city and expect me to be this completely new person. It doesn't really work like that. I mean sure sometimes God does this transformation in a life, but even then it does take some work.
So, tonight I want to share with you quite honestly that I am a sinner in the worst way. However I also know that I have been made a saint not by my efforts but by the death and life of Jesus. He has made it possible for me to a saint in the most unimaginable way. I'm forgiven by the grace and the gift of God and that fact means that when I fail at being a saint, a way back has been made for me. I know this may not be the fanciest of theology, but it is the center of my life. Christ is the only way for sinners like me to be allowed to speak to a pure and holy God. So this sinner is glad that she doesn't have to be a saint because it's not something I can do.
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