Drive up, give a little money, shift to neutral, and expect a work to be done correctly and completely, the first time. The car wash: A predicable routine.
It’s rare I hear someone bragging about how wonderful the drive-thru was, or talking about how eager they are to go back. Boasts, more often, are heard after a vehicle has been washed and waxed by hand. (Guilty.)
Boastful or not, there are these two people: ones who drive up, pay, expect, and then are off to the busyness that governs their lives. The others drive by and think, “I could do a better job myself.” And quite a job they do, with hoses and buckets full of suds, fixed on getting every inch squeaky clean and sparkling in perfection.
But…
“Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” Proverbs 20:9
God is far too creative for routine. People are creatures of habit; God is not. He’s not even a creature. So we better believe God will never be put in a box, not by no one! He cannot be contained, and He wrote it down because He knew we’d think otherwise:
Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built! 1 Kings 8:27
What is boxed in, however, are our ideas and expectations. Limits are placed out of fear, doubt, and lack of knowledge - not on God, but on faith. How many times have we, when we see a part of ourselves that’s less-than-desirable, driven ourselves up to God like He’s a car wash?
“Okay, this is how it went down last time. So, I’ll need to play THIS song, and sit like so, or was I laying? I said these words, but I must be careful not to stutter, otherwise I’ll have to start from the beginning. Oh, and I need to pay; there’s no way this is free. Here’s my sacrifice, no biggie, I didn’t really want that anyways. Routine? Check, check, check. Deep breath. Alright… ‘Here! Clean me! Change me!’”
What? Do you need a diaper change? Seriously, that's the word-picture the Lord gave me in response to my “cry” one night, and boy did it leave us rolling in the aisles! All of our yucky bits aren’t surfaced for the sake of pointing, cringing, laughing, or measuring ourselves on the “terrible” scale. They’re not even to make us ask God to “change us” (enter mental pic) and then leave.
God is not out to get me and catch me in the wrong. He’s out to give me all of Himself, purposefully and intentionally, to become every single thing that I need by invading every aspect of myself and my life, big and small, including the areas I want to keep hidden. He doesn’t take me out from under the cleansing Blood, point and say, “Eww, check that out!… What do you have to say for yourself?… Now ask Me to accept you again. Come on, ask,” and re-place me where I belong. What a cruel God He would be. Not the good and gracious, just and true, covenant-keeping God of the Bible.
It’s not the sacrifices He is after. It’s our hearts—your heart and my heart. Really, truly, it is not about how good we are, but about how good He is to you and to me. So when we see something about ourselves that makes us go “Ick! That’s mean. That’s so selfish,” (just for example, of course) it is the desire of our God to reveal to us a part of Himself we didn’t know before, to give us a new understanding of who He is, so that He can become something wonderful and magnificent for us in that area. It is then that we are transformed from glory to glory into Christlikeness.
If I was the joy set before Christ - the picture, the thought that helped Him endure the Cross - what a joy I must be! I can’t even think of a dessert worth waiting for an hour, on an empty stomach, no less. And I love me some sweets. Especially red velvet cupcakes, or oatmeal cookies, or Godiva chocolate brownies... Focus. Anyways. We were that joy! We still are, and the extent of His delight in us has not diminished!
Fact: I am in Christ. God put me there. And He will never consider taking me out, not even to show me the yuckies. Not now, not ever. I’m there to stay, for better or for worse. This means I am righteous. I am holy, and this is how I am seen by God, even when my actions don’t match.
This is not to say God is by any means blinded by love. As Graham Cooke says, “God is not disillusioned with us; He never had any illusions to begin with.” He really does see us where we are, as we are. He sees all our yucks, even the ones we don’t know about, and He actually likes us. None of this “I-love-you-but-I-just-don’t-like-you-right-now” business.
I don’t know everything God has said, but I do know one thing He will never say: “If you could just be less bad and more good, you would make My work so much easier.” He just doesn’t think like that; His thoughts are nothing like mine. He’s much too eager to share life with you to expect you to pay up every time a mistake is made. But when it is time to repent of a bad attitude or behavior, He is ready and waiting with a gift that is perfect and timely--a part of Himself.
My dear friend, Cathey McCrary, once told me that everything God tells us and does for us is never to bring fear, but to draw us deeper and bring us closer to Himself. He corrects, He warns, He instructs. He is a God to be known, a God to be loved, and a God who is out to make known His love for us.
So let us live in Christ, victoriously placed in righteousness.
Now may the God of peace
who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead,
that great Shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you complete in every good work to do His will,
working in you what is well pleasing in His sight,
through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever.
Amen.
Hebrews 13:20-21
