Faith

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Standards of Hole-y-ness

Interesting how we measure religions that are different than ours. We judge the monarchies and Religious leaders of the past. We learn in History classes, “They used religion to further their own agendas”. About the church down the street we say: “That pastor twists the Bible, he makes it say what he wants so he can get money from his church. But MY church believes and follows the Bible whole heartedly.” “The Bible is the infallible word of God, we live by it. I’m a living witness” That is what we say. Interesting, but could it be that we follow it hole-heartedly: That there are little-or large-gaps in our gospel, In our “truth” and consequently, in our lives? That we follow what we think is easy for us, what looks good to us and sift the rest in the strainers of our humanity, letting the seemingly small and unimportant grains of God and His word fall through the cracks. Do we adopt the clichés that are comfortable to scream from a pulpit while allowing the hard, cold realities of true relationship with Christ hide under the pew? Is our holiness, in fact hole-y-ness?

We like to “testify”: "When I came to God my soul was empty, and God filled me completely with His love". We believe there is a God sized void in all of us and that it is filled when He draws us and we respond. But I wonder if that emptiness was only partially filled, and if there are still gaps in each of our hearts we are afraid to acknowledge. When we try to fill the gaps ourselves it’s like an over-zealous husband trying to impress his wife. He tells her not to hire a plumber to fill the leaky toilet because he can do it himself for free. He “fixes” the leakage with some cheap putty he finds at the hardware store and for a while the leaking seems to cease. But, of course, the toilet starts leaking again and this time it’s worse. When the wife finally insists on calling the professional plumber the cost is substantial, but affordable. Then, when the work is done and the plumber is on his way out he says “The initial damage wasn’t too bad, but the cheap hardware store putty wasn’t strong enough for the leakage, and the accumulating pressure caused the damage to worsen exponentially. You should have called me sooner.”

I imagine you picked up on where I was going with that analogy. But humor me while I explain: God is the plumber. We are Christians, and claim to be holy, but our issues are leaking all over the place. When we can no longer hide them, we try to fix them ourselves. We stretch the corners of our mouths as far as we can into fake smiles, we become extra exuberant with our church worship, dress super modestly, we carry our Bibles everywhere (making sure there are a few underlined chapters, and ripped pages to complete the “spiritual-warrior” look), we even roll our eyes when people “less Christian” than us come through the door. We do all of this in a futile and vain attempt to fool others, God, and ourselves into thinking the leak is fixed and there are no more gaps. Until in our quest to be holy, we become hole-y.

Unfortunately, we try to fill the gaps ourselves with our own answers and reasoning. But, because we are human the gaps end up being filled with lies and hatred, self-pity and denial, regret and confusion, self-righteousness and judgment. All of those human tendencies have leaked out of the toilets of our hearts because we are too afraid to call the plumber. We are afraid of the cost, and it is true, it isn’t always pleasant to lay ourselves down at an altar before the Lord. Vulnerability is never easy. We don’t like the idea of someone coming into our lives and fixing us because we did it wrong. We don’t like acknowledging that we were too weak, too ignorant and inexperienced to do it on our own. We can’t admit that our putty is cheap. But, God knew it was worthless all along. No matter how much cheap putty we buy we can never fool Him. He knows what we are. After all, our righteousness to Him is worse than cheap putty: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Isaiah 64:6.

So what isn’t filthy to Him? The Bible says we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11, KJV). I believe our testimonies need to be laden with honesty. We need more testimonies that talk about what we really are. We need to stop hiding ourselves with cheap putty, and allow God to reveal what we are in His light. We need to stop being ashamed of our faults, stop hiding them from God and from each other. Disclaimer: I am not in anyway insinuating that we need to broadcast our sins on the evening news. Nonetheless, when we are honest with ourselves, and honest with God we can become living testimonies. When we tear down the façade, we are not simply writing our sins on our foreheads and basking in our mess. No, we are offering them to the Lord and consequently ourselves. We are saying to Him: “I am rotten, and I’ve tried to hide it from you and from everyone and it’s not working. I know You’re the only one who can do anything with this. I tried and failed and it’s no longer about me because I’m nothing anyway, it’s about You.” He takes the bitterness and makes it sweet. The stench of our humanity when offered to Him, becomes a sweet aroma of worship. Only then, can we become the living witnesses we think we already are and testimonies of His grace.

Fortunately, we serve a God who does not condemn or convict us like we are so quick to do. What we find when give it all to Him, when we finally call the plumber, is that the cost of repair wasn’t so bad compared to the damage. After He fixes it and it’s all said and done, we realize that we should have called Him much, much sooner.

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