Driving Blind

I watched a movie once where a woman was driving a car blindfolded. Her fiancé was in the back seat directing her through busy traffic, needless to say the scene didn't end well. By the end of the scene the man and his bride were angry with each other and there was a wake of destruction behind them.

As I sit here reflecting on my life these days, I'm feeling like that woman driving blindfolded. My back seat driver is my own expectations of myself, and behind me I've left a wake of destructive behaviors and attitudes, disappointments, and anxiety.

How are you feeling this afternoon? Maybe you can relate with me. Maybe you're feeling like the busyness of this life, the expectations you have, or the expectations others have for you-- have blindfolded you. Are you having a hard time seeing the road?

This morning I spent some time thinking about the people in my life who have been vulnerable enough to share their struggles with me, and I thought about my own struggles. The theme of the struggles I've heard, along with the pounding of my own heart,  is that no matter how hard I try, I am not enough.

My best efforts, are clumsy and inept at best. My inner script is punctuated with those words of disappointment. It's no wonder that I struggle with anxiety and worry.

I know that I am not alone in this, in fact, I'd venture to say that this is not a Erin problem, or a feminine problem. No, this is a human problem. It doesn't discriminate against age, sex, religion, social status or anything else. We do not measure up.

Even Paul, who many Christians argue to be one of the most zealous Christians in Church history, knows this struggle.

Paul writes in Romans 7: 14-21 that even though he longs and strives to do what is good, he still does what he doesn't want to do. There is a inner war being waged in your soul. The war between doing what is right and doing what is wrong. How do I win the war?

In my life, I tend to spend a lot of time focusing on all I did wrong. I replay my failures and shortcomings, over and over again. I think of all the ways I should have done something, all the ways I have not lived up. All that seems to do is spin me into a place of desperate hopelessness.

But what if I stopped looking at myself and start looking at the God who has already won the war.

This week, I've been reading of weakness. Specifically, how as a Christian I can have hope. Regardless of all the ways I fail, my failures show me something greater then all the success in the world.....

 I am loved by the God who is great. That love is not dependent on my abilies to earn it, or keep it.

God is sovergn and His plan for humanity is not dependant on my ability to be anything other than me.

This is Grace.

This the Power of God in me.

This gives me the hope to keep going. It gives me the supernatural ability to choose to do what is good over whatever it is that I want for me.

This takes off the blindfold.

It gives me eyes to see the road ahead over all the voices in mind telling me otherwise.

Do you want to see the road? Do you wish you knew where you are headed? Start by looking into the Grace God has for you.

Grace to fail, fall and flounder.

Grace to stand up and keep going.




Erin

The Greatness of His Godliness

The Greatness Of His Godliness


I have been thinking about Jesus lately.
That doesn't seem to outrageous.
After all, I think about Jesus often.

This time I pondered Him.

 I wondered about Him. 

I once read a book written by a man who played Jesus in a movie called The Gospel According to Matthew. In the book, called in the footsteps of Christ, Bruce Marchiano writes about his experience preparing to play the role of Jesus. He began to look at humanity through Jesus' eyes.

 I did some more research and came across this video of Bruce Marchiano retelling some of his experiences on set as Jesus.

He spoke about the miracles Jesus did.
Jesus spent His life healing the sick.
His everyday moments were spent making the blind see and the deaf hear!
His daily to-do list included healing the leper and raising the dead!

Yet, I have found that I read these accounts in the Bible with little more then an acknowledgement that they did indeed occur.

Can we stop for a moment?

Can we linger here over this?

This is the God man, Jesus. 

The very same God who created the world, who commanded waters to rise out of dry land and who whispered the very existence of stars and moons...

 now wraps our human flesh around himself and lived on this earth!

 I want to stop rationalizing Christ.
I want to stop dismissing His God-ness and focusing only on His humanity.
He was indeed human, but He was first and foremost the same God of the old testament. The Same I AM who manifested in fire and smoke.

The same God who turns when the woman touches His hem of His coat and says "Who touched me? I know that power has gone out from me." (Luke 8:46)

That same power that parted the red sea for the Israelites, made the bleeding woman whole.

As I sit here and think about the reality of God coming to earth, coming to humanity, coming to walk among our brokenness and filth, I can't help but be moved.

The trinity has always been hard to understand. It's hard to wrap my mind around Jesus and the Holy Spirit as still being first and foremost God. In my limited brain it becomes easier to make God the Father, and Jesus a slightly less- more human God.

As I enter into holy week, I want to see Jesus for who He really is.
Jesus is not a pawn sent to earth for a task, in order to right the wages of humanities sin.
Jesus is God himself bending as close to earth as possible and leaning in close to tell us one thing.

 I love you. I love you so much that I'm sending myself to you.

 I love you so much that I myself am going to absorb all my own punishment, so that you can start again.

I'm taking your punishment on myself. 

On me, God.

When Jesus spread His arms on the cross, He was literally holding back the power of God.
The Bible calls Jesus the mediator, the one who comes between.

Jesus stood between me and God. 

The heavens darkened, and the very creation that Jesus himself breathed life into, shook in terror as it witnessed it's creator take on all of creations sin, failures and pain.

This week let's not focus of Jesus' humanity. Let us focus on Christ's complete God-ness.
God came, God lived, God healed and God went to the cross.

Jesus, didn't begrudgingly go to the cross.
He was never forced onto the road to Golgotha by the Father in heaven pulling the strings.
From the beginning of time God had one way to deal with sin, and that is with sacrifice.

The wages of sin is death. 

Someone's blood must be shed for there to be redemption of sins.
Like in Genesis, when God met Abram (before he was named Abraham) and made a covenant with him. God Himself passed between the convenantal offerings, thus making the covenant not dependent on Abraham.

So is it with our sin. 

God's decision that sin will be redeemed through the shedding of blood, is not dependent on us.

 It was finished at the cross, when God took His own punishment!

What greater love could there be? 

If you struggle to see Jesus as God, then know that you do not struggle alone.
Know that I am praying for you.
I pray that you will be challenged this week.
I pray that you won't be able to shake off Jesus this week.
May you would be forced to come face to face with the cross.
When you do, you will find the real Jesus.
The God-man who kneels down to earth to tell you one thing...

I love you. I love you so much.