Our Own Worst Enemy

“Refusing to accept God’s love because we are unworthy – of course we’re unworthy! – is another golden calf.”  (Madeleine L’Engle)

If you consistently fail to show up for work, or the quality of your work is poor, do you get to keep your job?  If your test scores are low and you don’t turn in your papers on time, do you pass the class?  If you treat others badly long enough, do they stick by you?  Of course not, as it should be.  So, when it comes to something as important as your salvation, you’d better have all your ducks in a row.  After all, God is considerably more important and influential than your boss, your teacher, or your friend.  You’ve got to be good everywhere, all the time.  Wait…not just good, but perfect!  If you’re not, then you can’t possibly be worthy of God’s love or His saving grace.

Hmm…but there have been countless times when you haven’t been very good, let alone perfect.  In fact, you’ve been downright rotten at times, haven’t you?  (Dont worry, you're in good company).  Your list of should haves is almost as long as your list of shouldn’t haves.  Committed a crime?  Had unkind thoughts about God?  Well then, case closed!  As if that's bad enough, there’s nothing you can do about it.  Even if you are a perfect person from here on out (an awfully tall order!), you can’t go back and fix the times when you’ve messed up.  There is no way God could love you, really love you, if you’re such an incurable screw-up, right?  And there’s surely no way God would ever consider extending His gift of grace to you, right?  Why would He?

The reason it’s so difficult to accept God’s grace can be summarized in one word:  pride.  I know this all too well.  I’ve frequently questioned how or why God could possibly love and want to save a screw-up like me.  And in questioning that love, I’ve actually thought myself virtuous.  (I’m acknowledging my sinfulness and that I’m not worthy of God’s great and perfect love.  How humble I am!).  In reality, nothing could be more selfish, more arrogant, or more prideful.  Of course I’m not worthy of God’s great and perfect love.  No one is.  That is a given, yet somehow I think I have the authority and the influence to negotiate the terms of God’s love for me.  Somehow the ugly and shameful parts of my life are more significant than God’s ability to love me despite them.  What I’ve done and who I’ve been are somehow too much for the God of all creation to handle, too far beyond His vast reach, of greater significance than the cross of Christ.  So why not continue living as a victim?  Why not continue wallowing in my imperfection and adding to it in resignation?

Let this sink into the depths of you, as will I:  God’s grace cannot be earned.  We cannot make God love us or want to save us.  He simply does, more than we can fathom.  We can’t put qualifiers on God’s love for us.  His love is utterly complete and perfectly justified as is.  God created us, and what God creates He loves.  What God loves He wants to keep – not because of what we’ve done, but because of who we are to Him – His children. He sacrificed His one and only perfect Son for us because He loves us so.  We don’t have to understand it, to analyze it, or to make it fit.  All we can do is acknowledge it, accept it, and gratefully choose to live in it.

Thank you, Lord, for loving us despite ourselves!