Getting Naked

I fear the reason that most people who claim they're in love with Jesus aren't loving Him madly, is because they aren't being honest with Him. We're all afraid to approach Our Brother with a raw and bleeding heart. We try to bandage it up. Wrap it in old, reused band-aids. Hide all the ugly parts with different shades of storebrand make-up. We don't even bother trying to use the expensive stuff. I fear the lot of us are just cheap products of manufactured faith. We're putting on beauty padgets for God. We're all ugly people, trying to make ourselves beautiful for a God who doesn't care how we look. I think He'd rather us look like crap than some carbon-copied cutout from a magazine. I think we've been fashioned into cowards who are just down right afraid to face God with an honest heart. We aren't praying honest things. We're lip sincing songs we don't even like. It's terrible. God wants us to tell Him the truth just as much as we want Him to give it to us. We, dear brothers and sweet sisters, cannot grow in the Good Spirit if we are not willing to bear it all and get naked. We have to get honest with Holiness. Real spiritual growth cannot occur until you are ready to be real. Spill your secrets. Speak a word from the bottom of your broken soul. Rip off your clothes.

When I get pissed at God, I let the Old Man hear it. Probably too much. I tell God all the time that I don't like what He's doing, that He's rubbing my heart the wrong way, rocking my little boat too much. I challange Him to fights all the time. I've spent a lot of my faith in Christ with my fists clinched, ready to throw a right hook when He's not looking. He's always looking though. It sucks. I'm more bold with God than I am with human beings. I know I get like this because I'm not thirsty enough for His glory yet. I am getting there though. I'm telling you all this because, despite this desire I have to duke it out with God, He still wildly desires me. God refuses to let go of me. He just won't do it. I've wanted to bail out on God so many times. So many times. I've wanted to taste the world, see what other flavors are out there. I've asked God countless times to let me, to just let me go. But he doesn't. In fact, I think He grips me a little tighter. The Man refuses to give up on me. So I don't know why we've all gotten so afraid to let God hear it. He wants to hear our groans. He is dying to hear the parts of us that hurt. God wants us communicating with Him all the time, even when he's throwing thorns are way to shake us up. These days it seems like Big G keeps sending F5 tornadoes right down the alley way of my little heart. Everything has been ripped to shreads in there. I really need Bush to call for a state of emergency on it. I'm very hurt and I'm very beat up. And I don't like it. I'm not happy about dying. And dying is exactly what's happening here. Don't think I'm exaggerating. God is killing me because He wants nothing of me to remain. He wants more of Him and less of me. That only happens if I die. Completely. Totally. Dramatically. I let God hear about the pain of this all the time. I nag and pull on His arms like a little kid crying out to his mommy because he lost his favorite toy. I'm constantly praying, begging God to let me into His presence. It's the only place I don't feel miserable. Occassionally a cuss word will fly. Even two or three. I'm real with the Man. Raw, like unprocessed meats. I don't hide myself behind a thin sheet of fake smiles and cheap, churchy lies. And I'll tell you this: God's not surprised. You're not shooting off Gods' wheels when you get honest with Him. He doesn't pull His hair and panic. He doesn't get flustered and lose control. He's waiting for it. After all, He's the one doing this to me. He's the one ripping me so He can get more glory. I say we wrestle, wrestle on.

You are nothing but a waste if you are not bringing honesty to the altar of God. You are a collapsed lung without a breath to breathe. God wants you, not a maniquin. He doesn't want some processed person who's been shoved through some shady system that spits out some manufactured product that's been stamped with some faulty seal of approval. He wants His little girl. His little boy. His beautiful, broken daughter. His rugged, ruined son. He wants courage. He wants sacrifice. He wants to crown you with beauty. Take away all the ashes. He wants a face-off. A cold staredown. We're all told to tip our hats, bite our quivered lips, and smile when the shit hits the fan, when the heart breaks down. I say screw that. I suggest we wrestle with it. That's why it's there. We submit to God's glory and we wrestle with it. That's obedience. Obedience is not high-fiving something we hate- it's punching it in the face. It's taking punches just as much as it is dishing them out. Did you really expect to hand your life over to God and not bleed a little? The spilling of blood is absolutely necessary. We gain nothing for God if we don't bleed. Obeying God is a call to broken bones and stitches, black eyes and bruises. God isn't going to wreck us if it's not going to get Him more glory. Everything God does do us, whether disaster or dance, is done to make His glory greater. Every little, insignificant moment of our lives is God belittling and defaming our name, and making His bigger and more famous. God's not experimenting on us. He knows exactly what He's doing. And He wants you to be real with Him while He does it. Fix your eyes on His glory. Beg God to make little of you and more of Him. Become a beatdown, broken-hearted, bleeding beggar. This is how we have to point our feet. This is how we have to approach the throne of our Great God. Just get real with Him. Don't be afraid to stare this junk down. Get to the root of your hurting, wretched heart with Him. Your broken heart cannot be mended until you're ready to get honest. To be exposed. Until that, until you're real, everything you say or do is just a bunch of interference. It's noise breaking up the harmony of the Trinity. It's adding to the chaos that's confusing the connection. Your honesty with eventually lead to the refusion of that Great harmony. It is the blood behind the heartbeat. How great is our God that we can bring a real and broken heart before Him! How great is our God that He doesn't require us to wear makeup! I hate makeup. How great that we can be bold, honest, cuss in a prayer, and throw a punch before Him.

Your honesty will not fix things though. Don't think that for a second. It will only propell you onto the next phase, towards the next step up our mountain. Nothing gets easier. In fact, honestly, it all gets harder from here. A lot harder. Things have to change. More things break. With every step you take up the Great Hill, onwards towards the top, the more of you will die. Eventually, all of you will die- every bit- and all that will remain will be the Great Glory of our Great God. If we don't make His glory our only focus, we will lose our footing and fall. We will stand on cliffs and contemplate jumping back down.

God is breaking us. Pissing us off. Shaking things up. Bringing us to blood and tears. Into a brutal, brutal boxing match where we leave in bodybag. And He's doing it so He can win. He's doing it for Himself. For His Glory. His Story. His Fame. And he'll lead us into all these horrible heartaches just so he can come show up and rescue us. So he can rescue His beautiful, beautiful daughter. So that he can redeem his baby-eyed boys. He will not leave us stranded. He will not leave us orphaned. He's coming back for us. Nothing, none of this is about us though. He's lessing us for more of Him. He will only rescue us so we will exhalt His name. We are nothing but ways and means to more of His glory. Period. We are bridges between God and more glory. He'll do whatever it takes to get to more of Himself. Even if that means ruining us. Have hope in that ruining though, because whatever God ruins, He rescues. He has promised that. Proved it time and time again in scripture. Hold Him to it. Remind Him. Tug on His arms like that crying kid. I have to believe God will come through, that He'll follow through with His promises. I have to believe that God is in the buisness of rebuilding the things that he breaks. I have to bank all of my stock in that one truth about Him. I have to hope, that whenever He wants, He's going to get me the hell out of the desert. That's He's going to get me to the top of this Everest we're on. I have to trust that he'll get me through every avalanche along the way. I have to trust that He's helping me. Carrying me. Encouraging me. Getting me closer. Covering me with grace. Making me a man. I have to believe he'll be pleased with both my broken legs when I finally make to the summit. That he'll be happy with all the wounds I'm wearing. That love will blossom between us, bold and bright, like a red rose alone in white snow. I have to believe that I'll make it to the top, that all my friends will be there too. And that at the top, after all is said and done, I'll smile again, I'll rest and laugh deeply with the Trinity. Maybe even with my dear brothers and sisters. I suppose though it won't matter who I'm laughing with then, only that I'm laughing. I hope He'll be happy with my honestly then. I hope, more than anything, he'll be happy with my heart.

I hope I find you climbing along the way. I hope you get to the top with me. I hope we make it together. I hope you're not afraid. I hope you beg for courage. I hope you beg for broken legs. I hope you crawl if you have to. Don't bail out. Please. Please climb. Please climb on.