We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do things correctly. In any area of our life, I think it is a pretty general trend that we don't enjoy being wrong. Be it the pressure put on us from our culture, or the simple fact that we don't like to appear foolish, I know I (in the most limited of scopes) beat myself up quite a bit if I mess up in some way.
Your honor, I would like to present to the court the piece of evidence from here on referred to as exhibit A. At one of our recent early morning prayer times here at WWU, I was doing the thing which the name of the time establishes as normative for that meeting. At one point, I'm pretty sure that I prayed that the "Lord would reveal themselves to His people all the more."
Here's something close to what happened in my brain after saying that.
"Wait, what did I just say? That sounded wrong. God, I'm sorry if I said the wrong thing. Wait, crap that was polytheistic, blerg I hate it when I do that by mistake. Now I'm being heretical. Should I correct myself? No, that'll just make an even bigger deal out of it. I just won't say anything, maybe everyone will just forget. Sorry about that again Lord."
It's really pretty astounding how much my brain can do in a matter of about a second. In particular, I'm surprised how much I can beat myself up over one little slip up in such an amazingly short period of time. I'm sure, given a bit longer, I would have convinced myself that I was the grandest of all idiots, doomed to living a life of incomprehensible stupidity the likes of which the world has never seen.
The question that has been bouncing around in my head since then is a simple one, yet a profound response to all of my worrying. I'm quite certain it's one of those wonderfully calming thoughts that comes from God in those moments when I'm getting distracted by silly things.
"Do you not get that I don't care how eloquent you are? Stop trying to perform. Just love me."
Faith is an area in which it is just as easy for us to allow our paranoia of being wrong stop us, or at the very least distract us, from that which we are meant to have, that which is meant to enrich us. Honestly, I don't know why we worry about this so much. Any holistic examination of scripture I have ever taken has shown me that God isn't into smiting people because they prayed incorrectly, or because they were accidentally a polytheist for a second or two.
Simply put, I don't think there is a wrong way to explore more of who God is. We might be able to come to wrong conclusions about things, but when we honestly seek to get to know more of Him, I think He is incredibly excited about that. So join with me, those who would see this, in not worrying about those minute times when we get the lyrics wrong in worship, or say the wrong thing in prayer, or forget where something is in the Bible. Let's stop worrying about all of that, and instead just realize and embrace the fact that God is rejoicing when we spend time with Him.
With His love and grace,
Taylor
Cool post. And I'm really sorry for this, but in response to
ReplyDelete"Any holistic examination of scripture I have ever taken has shown me that God isn't into smiting people because they prayed incorrectly, or because they were accidentally a polytheist for a second or two."
I both can't resist and I would legitimately like to hear your thoughts on 2 Samuel 6:6-7. That's always been a rather tough passage for me.
Hrrm, that is an interesting point. That's only the first time I've actually read that (I've heard it loosely referenced before at some point), so I'm not sure what I think on it. I'll do some digging and get back to you.
ReplyDeleteTake your time, man. I've done some digging in the past and I don't think an answer will pop up overnight. But I think you're right for the most part. God doesn't care about our mistakes as much as the intentions of our hearts, and that may be the case in 2 Sam 6:6-7 -- that this dude willingly rejected God's instructions to not touch the ark -- but it's just not clear about that.
ReplyDeleteHey, so we talked about this forever ago, but I finally got around to reading this passage in a somewhat deep manner. My conclusion? I don't really know. Of course, I have to recognize God's sovereignty. Lot's of questions do come up, though. Wasn't this guy just trying to be helpful? Is the issue that He wasn't trusting enough? I can't say for sure.
ReplyDelete