Not Good Enough

The following blog is a repost from my church's website. I'm kinda juggling reflecting for that site now as well as this blog. So sometimes if something is quite fitting for both I might carry it over and repost

The internet is full of random (and often pointless) lists. You know what I’m talking about; “10 Most Amazing Mix-Breed Puppies” or “Top 3 and Worse 3 Steven Seagal Movies of All Time” or “5 Reasons Gen X’ers are Leaving the Church”. And if you are like me, you enjoy reading these lists. They rarely change my life. They rarely change my mind. They rarely prompt me to act. But I enjoy reading them, and sometimes they name things I agree with but never think to name myself.

Today’s post is about one of those lists. This one was “18 Ugly Truths About Modern Dating That You Deal With”. There were a few moments where I had to nod. But then I came across number 14:

“You aren’t likely to see much of someone’s genuine, unfiltered self until you’re in an actual relationship with him or her. Generally people are scared that sincerely putting themselves out there will result in finding out that they’re too available, too anxious, too nerdy, too nice, too safe, too boring, not funny enough, not pretty enough, not some other person enough to be embraced.”

It boils down to this, we are deathly afraid in relationships of not being good enough. We hold things back out of fear that we won’t be accepted. It takes love, trust, and compassion to allow us sometimes to reveal our true colors. And even then, sometimes that does not seem enough, because we still hold that doubt.

This is true with God as well. There is a parable told by Jesus about a Pharisee and a Tax Collector (Luke 18.9-14) who have different prayers. The Pharisee prays with thanks that he is not like [insert scoundrel and sinner here], and he creates an image to support this prayer: he tells God he fasts and tithes. The tax collector beats his breast in prayer “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” The Pharisee wants to lift up whatever he can to distinguish himself before God from others, including the tax collector. The tax collector simply looked to God to have the kind of compassion, love, and trust that allows one to be honest with God.

We often don’t like to face our shortcomings in the eyes of others, and it should be no surprise how much that happens in regards to God. We can create a facade of a Christian life hoping that we look good enough, we can keep our shames, doubts, and failings hidden from our brothers and sisters. And sometimes folks avoid church altogether out of the fear of judgment. In the church, we are simply afraid of not being good enough. And so like a Pharisee we create a false image. In his book Glorious Ruin Tullian Tchividjian talks about how we create barriers to honesty. He writes, “Behind each one of these barriers to honesty is a deep-seated misconception about Christianity. Contrary to popular belief, Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is about bad people coping with their failure to be good. That is to say, Christianity concerns the gospel…the gospel is a proclamation that always addresses sinners and sufferers directly (i.e. you and me).”

Instead of expecting you to be better than you are for this whole “disciple” thing to work, the Gospel invites us to be honest the same way it happens in relationships, by at all costs convincing us that in Christ we are reconciled to God. This happens through what Luther refers to as “the happy exchange”. Jesus takes your sins, weaknesses, and failings, while sharing with you his righteousness, Sonship, and resurrection. Taking what separates and giving us the fullest communion with God. This leads to Paul to say “since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5.1-2). In Christ, peace with God! In Christ, we obtain a grace in which we stand before God! We always fear what the law says: not good enough. And you can try to craft your image in the law or you can stand on a total difference ground that says: Christ is more than enough!

This is how faith in Christ fosters relationship. It takes whatever would stand between us and God and won’t let them stand as a barrier, standing in grace is standing before God without barriers. And it lets us truly approach God. The same way the timid soul opens up as it connects and trusts the love of a partner. It means our faith is always initiated by God’s love towards us and always leading us into deeper relationship with him.

But it goes further than this. The reality of dating is not only that we hold back at the start of relationships but we continue to do so as they progress. What is sad is that as we know our partner more, we know more of what they want and don’t want, and we can use that to shape in what ways are we open with them. Affairs are an extreme example, but generally speaking if we know our partner expects commitment and fidelity we are more likely to hold back those moments where we have treaded or crossed those boundaries than say being honest about our passion for Football even if the other is not a football fan, because we trust that they care enough about us that our difference won’t lead to separation. It is much harder to trust that our trespass won’t lead to separation. This is the power of the promise of the gospel, it is a promise that not only the weird things about us that make us seem not your ideal servant (kind of like Moses’ speech issues not making him an ideal prophet – Exodus 4.10) but even the trespass shall not breach the relationship established on the cross. Not only has he promised to forgive, but on the cross the trespass was turned into his means of forgiveness and reconciliation. This invites us not just at the start, but throughout this life with God, to be as open as ever, knowing that when it requires the tax collector’s cry, it will be answered with the Savior’s love.