The Wading Pool

There is so much brokenness.

I talked to an old friend today about struggles we both have from past hurts. There aren’t easy answers.

It sucks.

It’s hard.

We both are weighed down by burdens heaped upon us which we were never meant to carry alone. We are broken. Life is hard. There are no easy answers. Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel just never arrives, no matter how hard you run.

It took a while for me to realize a large part of what God was doing in moving us away from all we knew was soul-surgery. He was going to root out the religion, the fake, the show in me. The crucible exposes the flaws in the silver, right? It sure exposed the ones in me.

It hasn’t been easy. It’s still not.

But I wouldn’t trade it. Not for anything.

Because, in the end, I’d rather be broken and be humbled than go through trial after trial and be in denial. I’d rather Jesus expose my sin and foolishness for what it is than to continue to prop myself up as if I have it all together. One bears fruit that will endure, as hard bought as it might be, while the other revels in false fruit and inauthenticity, a mask and a show.

Gosh, sometimes it feels like we’re the guys from “Weekend at Bernie’s”, running around trying to prop up the dead man of religion like he’s alive. Wave an arm, nod a head, act like it’s all good…when the reality is our hearts are dead and we’re just faking it hoping we make it.

I grew up thinking the gospel was only for new believers, that moment when you realize youre a sinner and need a savior. I now know that’s not true. The gospel is for every day of my life. The gospel reminds me that the world is fallen, and that fall taints every aspect of it. But it also reminds me that Jesus came to redeem and restore every fallen part of it

Including me and you, and all our brokenness.

But we have to quit acting like it’s all ok. We have to quit pretending we have it all figured out. Like that picture above, there are holes in our roof! We need help! Like the paralytic who’s friends lowered him through the hole to Jesus, we need folks around us who see our brokenness and stop at nothing to get us to The One who can help.

Jesus came to give us life, life abundant. He didn’t come to prop up hypocrisy and the old way, but to show us what’s real and give us a new way, a true way. In His grace, He knocks down our false walls and hiding places, seeks us out, exposes all the ways we’ve trusted in ourselves and our systems and our good deeds and says, “Look…that’s all a lie…it’s all vapor…none of it will last. Come to Me, weary child, and find the rest I bought with my life. Come to Me and be restored, not to who you once were, but to who I made you to be.”

Come out of hiding. Take your hurts and your brokenness to Jesus.