Why are we so afraid to come to God with our crap? I feel like that is a really big problenm for us, to put aside our pride and come to God broken so he can fix us. For some reason we feel like we need to repair ourselves before we come before God. It is incredible to me that we al struggle with trusting God so we put our trust in everyone else. Everyone who will, without a doubt, fail us. Yet, we are scared to out our trust in the One who has never and will never break our trust or stop believing in and loving us.
I had been thinking about it a lot lately and my youth pastor gave some good insight into it. He explained why we are afraid of coming to God with our crap. We see ourselves as the center of the universe and when God makes himself close, or even the idea of God being close scares us so much we tell God to go away because its scary for us. But God is always close and we don't see that. Take Peter on the boat, they couldnt catch anything all night and then Jesus shows up and is like "Throw the nets out again. And they do and they get a crapload of fish. (eloquently put I know) They get more than they could ever have imagined. And then Peter says "Lord,i am a sinful man, go away from me." Peter couldnt handle the closeness of God. He wasnt comfortable with God and his power being so close to his life. He felt too sinful for God to be there with him. He felt like he needed it figured out before Jesus came but that didn't get him any fish did it? Jesus took over and was with him even though Peter didn't have it all together.
Then there is David. David made some pretty crappy decisions. Like really bad. adultery, then murder, and it took him a while to even repent of that. Yet God loved David, held David in such high regard. Why? Because God saw himself in David. He was titled the man after God's heart because even with all that crap he had, he ran to God. God was at his center. David saw that he wasn't the center. He messed up. a lot. and gloriously at that. Yet God upholds David so high because despite and in the midst of all of David's crap, he saw himself in David. If God sees himself in David, he sees himself in us. God sees himself in us? wow. That's huge to me. No matter how much crap and terrible things we accomplish as humans, we can always bet God is close. and we shouldnt back away from that. He isn't in the clouds choosing to come and go as he pleases. He is with us. Immanuel: "God with us."
Jesus didn't leave Peter after he told him to go away from him. He pretty much said that he wasnt going anywhere. He knew Peter was a screw up but he was willing to do so much for him anyway. It was peter that wasn't comfortable with his closeness. But jesus didnt back away; instead he accepted him and helped him even though he had his crap. and David had an incredible amount of crap, but God saw himself in him anyway and David was held so high because he came to God with it. so great.
