Most of my other blog entries are fun and focused on making weird crap. This one will be a bit different.
Recently, a friend posted a status asking for some encouragement because she was feeling inadequate. Understandably, her friends and family rallied around and posted all sorts of great things about her and why they thought she was wonderful. Some also reminded her that God loves her and thinks she is special.
But their comments didn't sit right with me.
Now before you go all catty on me, I love this friend and I do think she's great and delightful to be around. Its just that the encouragements her friends brought, encouragements I have brought myself to others at different times, they just rang hollow in my ears.
The truth is, we ARE inadequate. We are. We all fail at something, be it weight goals, academic goals, housekeeping (the bane of MY existence) parenting, time management, relationships, etc. The list could be endless. Humanity succeeds profoundly at failure.
Normally we attempt to ignore our failures by focusing on our strengths. While this is beneficial to establishing a career and for overall satisfaction in life, our inadequacies will still be there when the day is done. Haunting us. And sometimes, no matter how hard we try, little growth is seen.
What makes things worse is that Biblically, the standard is perfection. AND some verses make so light of our existence that it leaves us wondering, what's the point!? To be told "you are special" and the read "your life is like a breath, like dew on the grass" is confusing in the worst way. Are we special? Do we really matter? Over 7 billion people are alive right now. (And that's not counting everyone else throughout history.) Next time you're in traffic, look around at the horde that surrounds you. You and I are so insignificant, it is mind boggling.
So what are we supposed to do with this? How do we reconcile our dreams of our ideal self with the reality that we, as humans, are human? How does just one grain of sand find it's worth?
The answer can be, and can only be, God.
Yes, we are hopelessly inadequate. We'll never be good enough, but God loves us anyway. Our failure and inadequacy is precisely why Jesus came. If we were as awesome as we all want to be, the Cross wouldn't have been necessary. But it was, and you know what, God is ok with that. Without Jesus, we never would have known the depth of His love for us. I doubt we will EVER truly know the depth of His love, this side of the grave. But we can attempt to grasp at it, pondering the terrible sacrifice of His Son.
And no, when compared to the vast conglomeration of humanity, you and I are not really important. Special. There are others like you, others better than you, others less inadequate. There will always be someone better, even if you never meet them. The problem is that we are basing our identity on our specialness, and that is an easily rocked foundation. Who are you if your specialness is removed?
You are still you, with or without your strengths AND weaknesses.
I believe this is who God sees. Just me, stripped naked before the throne, all of my talents and failures strewn about the floor at my feet. All I can do is look at them in despair, desperately trying to weigh out the good and the bad on the scales of justice, praying the good carries more weight.
But this is no Greek Myth. There are no scales. Jesus comes in and kicks the piles aside and embraces me. The lover of my soul does not judge my value by my inadequacies. He KNOWS I won't make it! The wounds on his hands and feet prove His intimate knowledge of my failures.
Like the prostitute, He helps me up and encourages me to keep trying. "Sin no more." Don't give up. Come on, let's keep going. There are no false words about my significance or ability, just His arm helping me take the next tiny step forward.
And, in spite of my miniscule little blip of an existance, He knows me. This doesn't make my life any bigger in the world's eyes, but it makes HIM all the more spectacular in my eyes. With all of the countless people that have ever and will ever live, He knows me. He cares. The God who directs galaxies and holds molecules together knows me. He guides the rise and fall of Kings and Empires, and He ALSO took the time to figure out something for little, insignificant me. That doesn't make me great, it makes me loved and that is more important than being great.
I am inadequate. But Jesus saved me. I am insignificant. But the God of eternity knows my name.
Only with Him is there any hope, any value and any purpose.
