I know your rising up and your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against me.
Hmm. To have a god that knows my rising up and my sitting down. That knows my raging against God. That is an intimate god, who knows me intimately. That is a little daunting. God knows all my foibles, my scattered thoughts, my moments of short temper. It could be really frightening until I remember that God loves me, regardless. Once I remember that, God’s intimacy is not frightening or daunting. It’s perfect.
This morning, I’m thinking about people who are missing part of this equation. There are some who think God cannot see all, that God does not know all. These people act in secret, as if there was somewhere their actions or thoughts were hidden from God. These people know God loves them, including all the parts of themselves that they parade out for God and community. The nice shiny bits. These people split themselves between the good, God loving parts, and the rest of their lives.
I have a priest colleague who had a nasty job in the marines in Viet Nam. He spent years being an excellent priest, and trying his best to forget or hide those dark and twisted parts of his life and soul. Luckily, a wise spiritual director encouraged him to bring his whole self to God, that God could, in fact, restore and renew all parts of him, and use them for God’s glory. My friend ended up becoming a respected leader in the field of post traumatic stress and spirituality. That was something he could not have done, had he continued to hide those bits from God for God’s loving transformation.
There are other people who show their whole selves to God, they hide nothing. But they’ve somewhere learned that God could not love them, that they are not worthy of God’s love. I’ve met these people on the streets, and in prisons, at coffee houses, and in offices. They feel cut off from God’s love, as if it’s reserved for the perfect, or at least more perfect.
Both of these kinds of people are desperately in need of knowing God’s good news, in word or deed.
God sees all of us, even our twisted bits. There is no point in hiding or splitting ourselves into good/visible and bad/hidden. We who know this need to show our vulnerability and our weaknesses, so that others can see that we have them. Hiding doesn’t make sense.
God loves all of us, even our visible twisted bits. We cannot separate ourselves from God’s love, regardless of our comings and goings, or our ragings against God. We are worthy of God’s love; we’ve already received God’s love. People who don’t feel worthy need to know that they are loved by God. Another friend relayed that one of the great parts of mission work, of working with people in desperate need is that through our actions, we can show them that God loves them, that God has not forgotten about them.
Today, I’m going to try to preach the Gospel to people who don’t know that God sees all, and God loves all.
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