Good Question, Biebs. — Colorfull Bloom
In the words of the Biebs, “Is it too late now to say sorry?” Have you ever had a revelation that made your head explode? You’re living your best life, so you think, then God drops this major revolutionary truth bomb on you and you feel, well—the word humble barely begins to describe it. If I can, I’d like to humbly begin to tell you about my bomb.
I’ve been a Christian for a long time. I grew up in church. And over the course of my life, I lived in a very dangerous mindset. Of course I didn’t think it at the time, or even realize it, but I thought if I act like my life is perfect, people will want to get saved. There are people in my life who aren’t believers. I genuinely thought if I intentionally chose to keep things I struggle with to myself, my life will appear “better” and they will want to become Christians too. It seemed like a perfectly logical plan. My heart was in the right place, but at the same time I didn’t know any better. It’s sorta like speeding super fast and cutting people off on the drive to church. I was trying to get to a destination, but the way I tried getting there wasn’t safe. Or honest. I had a goal in mind, but the way in which I was trying to achieve it wasn’t really all that great. Deception is a crazy, dangerous place to live. “If people could only see what a Christian life is like, wouldn’t they want to surrender their lives to Jesus, too?” I’m gonna go ahead and answer confidently on their behalf with a big fat “no”. My mindset was that life is truly better living for Jesus (which I fully believe) but the way I went about showing it wasn’t good, or authentic. Definitely far from realistic. Life isn’t perfect for anyone. No matter what you believe. If you’re atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, Mormon, or you worship aliens, life is not perfect. So as a Christian who has fed that facade, I am sorry. I was essentially lying to people and to myself. I was naive in thinking this life didn’t come with it’s fair share of heartache and hard times. All throughout scripture we see how we’re going to suffer just as Christ did. Duh, Kylene.
The very interesting thing about our struggles is how we relate more to people who’ve struggled with the same things we have. And you don’t know about struggle until you share them first. Don’t put the cart before horse, as they say. It makes me sad to think about people I may have ostracized because I wore my “I-got-this” face on for so long. Who am I kidding? It’s a mask I still put on very easily. What’s so important about sharing your struggles is it makes you more relatable to people. People see you in a different light because wow, you’re a human with an imperfect life, too. Relational conversation is one of my favorite things in the world, but it’s something I have to consciously work on because it just doesn’t come that naturally to me. Any type of connection like that makes my heart so light and happy. We’re built for connection. God made us that way. Find people who care about you that you can trust. It’s important to share your heart with people you trust. There is a lot of healing in it.
So if we as humankind all experience hard times in our lives, what helps us walk through it all? Hope. Hope and faith that Jesus has a plan for us. He’ll never leave us or forsake us. He is always with us. And that brings us hope. It makes walking through this imperfect life a lot easier. Times won’t always be easy, but we walk with someone who can help us through this life and wants to give us good things!
Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
