I accepted Christ when I was five years old.
My mom plopped my big sister and me on her bed one day, told us about Jesus and I went for it. Hook, line and sinker. I signed up and never looked back. I have no memories of my life before Jesus was in it.
So I’ve been a Christian for a long time. I’ve been a part of a number of Bible studies, read tons of books, been to lots of conferences, heard plenty of speakers, am in the Bible almost daily. I’ve studied, I’ve learned, I’ve taught, I’ve led.
But it never ceases to amaze me how much I still struggle with the very basics of the faith. The stuff that I readily embraced as a five-year-old now trips me up at 36.
So for all the knowledge I’ve gained over the these years, for all the things I can so clearly explain to other people, why do I have such a hard time believing them for myself and living like they’re true?
I can think of a handful right now and I’m sure there are even more than I realize. So I’m going to start a series on five-year-old faith. I’d like to kick around some of the core truths we believe has Christians that for some reason are just so hard to grasp.
Jesus said in Matthew 18, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of God.” So I’m gonna try to recapture the wide-eyed, whole-hearted, VBS, Sunday School, children’s church, all-in faith that I had as a kid and see if it’ll help me settle some issues so I can get on with the kingdom work I’m called to.
Let’s go ahead and start with the biggest one, the single most important belief in Christian doctrine:
Jesus loves me.
You guys, I know this. I KNOW it. Why else would He have died on the cross for me? Why else were we created in the first place? Why else did He spell it out all the way through the Bible? I KNOW He loves me.
But the truth is, the gut-level-just-between-God-and-me truth is, I don’t live like it. I doubt that many people would look at my life and say, “Wow, she knows she’s loved.”
Now they might say, “Wow, she’s really into this Christianity thing. I think she really believes this stuff.” But living loved, that’s different.
It shouldn’t be. It should be our starting point. And you know what? I bet it was when I was five. But life happens.
God’s love for me was a lot easier to believe when my deepest, darkest sin was spitting my Flintstone vitamins behind the couch after my mom gave them to me each day because they tasted bad and I didn’t want to tell her. (True story.)
The love of Jesus has been a constant in my life. It has never wavered, hesitated or paused. But just because you love someone doesn’t mean they always accept it. And nobody knows that better than Jesus.
I just can’t imagine my children not living like I love them:
Trying to do everything right for fear of losing my love.
Not spending time with me because they’re too busy trying to impress me.
Trying to do everything themselves when I’m wanting and WAITING to help them.
Carrying burdens that are way too much for them when I could shoulder them with ease.
Reminding themselves of all the reasons I shouldn’t love them when I try to show or tell them of my love for them.
Thankfully, as far as I can tell, my kids have settled the issue of my love. They hang out with me, let me do stuff for them (a little TOO much sometimes), share their worries. And when I tell them I love them, they believe me. They believe me. And they should. Because I prove my love to them a million times a day.
I have a confession: The only reason I started this blog was to feel God’s pleasure.
Like in Chariots of Fire, I know it’s what I was made to do. When I write, I feel God’s pleasure. So I write. He gets the glory (hopefully) and I get His smile. Everybody wins.
One Friday afternoon on a drive home from dropping off Caroline with her dad, God started talking.
I had posted that morning and the thing had blown up. It wasn’t something I had planned and been working on for weeks. I just woke up that morning and the words were there waiting for me.
God had something to get out THAT DAY, so I wrote and published the whole thing in one morning. No editing. No rewriting. No sitting on it for a couple days. At His prompting, I wrote it and it was gone. First draft out there for the world to see. Scared me to death.
But as I read the comments and watched the numbers climb to what would end up being my most-viewed, most-shared post to date (by a mile), I knew this was something important. I also knew it had very little to do with me. God gave me the life experience to share and the words to use. It was all Him. Just as it should be.
I was marveling at this while driving and worshiping and I started hearing God speak in my soul.
Do you feel My pleasure?
I hadn’t that day. I usually do on Friday mornings. While I’m getting ready for work after I post, I open my heart to Him and He fills it with His favor. He confirms that I’m obeying Him and bringing Him glory and I revel in it.
But that morning, I was so distracted by the last-minute post and not getting to follow my weeks-long process, that I was a nervous wreck. I frantically hit the showers, got dressed and flew through my day. So God waited until I was a captive audience alone in the car.
I can’t hear Him without getting choked up and I really just wanted to get home. The tears were brimming in my eyes so I tried to push the stirrings away. But God wasn’t going to let me miss His love. Not that time.
I am so proud of you.
The words were slow and deliberate and my tears spilled over. What human being in the world is not starving for those words? But for some reason beyond me, I pushed back.
But Lord, I’m such a mess.
You’re MY mess. And you’re doing it. You’re doing what I put you here to do.
The favor was too much to take, but there was nowhere to hide. Looking back, I am baffled by my desire to hide, to not accept the love and affirmation that I so desperately wanted from Him. I get so frustrated with His silence. But when I actually hear from Him, exactly what my weary heart needs to hear, no less, I deflect it?
I gave up the fight and let the tears flow in silence.
You must learn to let Me love you. You must practice it and develop it like a skill. This is so important. If you let Me love you, really let Me fill you the way I long to, it would change everything.
The worship music continued to play in the background and I let those words hang in the air.
It would change everything.
When I know I’m loved and really feel it, it’s obvious to everyone. I’m secure. Confident. Peaceful. Harder to rattle. Quick to forgive and accept forgiveness. Easy to laugh. Content. Heightened energy. Deeper sleep. Roll with the punches. And that love spills out of my life all day long: in my work, in my relationships, in everything.
But when I’m not feeling loved, well, we all know what that looks like. It looks like 99% of us 99% of the time. Insecure. Jockeying for position. Defensive. Self protecting. Guarded. Anxious. Easily shaken. Controlling. Fearful.
Listen up, folks. We don’t have time for that nonsense. We just don’t have time. We’ve got to settle this issue of God’s ridiculous love for us so we can get back to the business of living the life He has called us to live.
And here’s the thing: I feel God’s love when I write, when I obey. But I should feel it all the time.
I don’t feel it when I’m sinning. Not because God’s love is conditional. But because I hide. Like Eve, I eat the fruit, drop the ball, step it in and panic. And Satan’s condemnation (mixed with my own guilt) rings so loud in my ears that I can’t hear my loving Father calling out for me with concern and desire, “Where are you?”
When you live loved, you don’t WANT to sin (Romans 7:19). Sin comes from fear, and perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Sin comes from selfishness, and any (weak, fleeting, conditional) love you have for yourself cannot compete with the love of God.
And when you DO sin (which you will because it’s in our genes and we are fallen creatures), you run back to your Father for forgiveness which you fully believe is there waiting for you, you fully accept it immediately, and then you get back to work, with no time lost in guilt, hiding or isolation.
Brennan Manning lived loved. One of my favorite quotes of his is:
In the 48 years since I was first ambushed by Jesus in a little chapel in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania, and in literally thousands of hours in prayer, mediation, silence and solitude over those years, I am now utterly convinced that on Judgment Day, the Lord Jesus is going to ask each of us one question and only one question: Did you believe that I loved you?
I could go on about this forever and still not scratch the surface of this topic. But we’ve all got lives waiting for us. So as we go through our days, let’s wrestle with this. Let’s think about how different our day would look if we walked through it knowing and believing we were enveloped by the reckless, wild love of Jesus.
And as you wrestle, prepare for and look forward to the moment when you lose, because guess what: Love wins. Surrender to the crushing weight and furious strength of a love too amazing to understand. You don’t need to understand it to accept it. Let Him love you.
I’ll close with another Brennan Manning quote from the link above:
The god of so many Christians I meet is a god who is too small for me. Because he is not the God of the word, he is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ, who this moment comes right to your seat and says, I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And My word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you as you are and not as you should be, because you’re never going be as you should be.
I say we take the dare, call His bluff and see what happens.
I have a feeling it will change everything.
