The Great Cover Up
I have a tendency to hide things. To cover over those things that I am not really all that fond of people finding out. But who isn't, right? Why would I want everyone to know all of my idiocracies? Do I really want people knowing that I was afraid of the dark well past when it was fashionable for my age? Or that I cheated to pass that one penmanship test back in third grade?
Ok. Maybe those did not actually happen. But seriously, I cover up a ridiculous amount. I keep most of my thoughts well hidden. If people knew how cruel or immoral or insane some of my thoughts were they would never talk to me. I often hide the way I feel. Hiding the way I feel will then obviously force me to hide certain actions that would result from those feelings. I try to cover up my weaknesses. My mistakes. My grudges. My inadequacies. Basically, I put on a face that is acceptable. Not even so much as acceptable, but more so a face that I think everyone will see as acceptable. I think the word for that is hypocrite?
But what if there is something I cover up even more? What if what I truly hide the most is NOT my inadequacies, but the God that lives within me?
I believe that God resides within me. If that is so, why does He not show up more in my life? If I were not hiding God, would I still be hiding my weaknesses? Or would not hiding God enable me to be more real? Actually, if God was being seen through my life, I do not think it would be possible to be anything but transparent. To be real. To be fully human. So if being fully human means not hiding God, why do I do it?
Why is it that I always seem to do what I do not want to do and do not want to do what I do?
God is within me and He is dying (has died) for me to let Him out.
Then why? Why the mistakes? Why the failures? Why the disconnect between the me God wants and the me that I mostly show? I realize that I am in desperate need of God's grace and forgiveness. Well, His grace and forgiveness are there already and I am just in desperate need of accepting it. What is His grace if not applied to my life? What is forgiveness if not accepted? What is His love if I am not willing to be entangled in it?
I want to be graced. I am. To be forgiven. I am. To be loved. I am. Knowing that, I desire to see the God within me be uncovered. To be let out. He is dying to be let out.
posted by jadongood at
4:22 PM
1 Comments:
Sometimes the only way to learn how to accept grace, love, and forgiveness is to be gracious, loving, and forgiving. Do the things you need. If "it's in giving we receive," then this naturally follows. If your focus is on sharing grace, God will fill you with it. There isn't anything we can do to be filled with God's love, it's a one-way channel from God to us. All we can do is receive it and channel the love God gives us outward, into others. Sometimes we don't feel it until we use it. But by getting caught up in the "me" part of that trio, we can't love others and thus don't know how to receive God's love truly ourselves.
I think by hiding our messiness we're hiding God's greatest gift - unconditional love. I won't speak for you, but I hide things because I'm afraid people won't like me, or accept me, or love me if they knew. When I see other people being honest about their shortcomings and then see how they are still loved not only by others but by God, that gives me courage to do the same. People need to see that. People need to feel that. People need to know that they are loved no matter what, even though they have messed up, or are different through no fault of their own. God wants nothing more than to love us. Why do we constantly deny God that?
12:54 PM
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