OPEN KIMONO

Answer Easter.

As a sinner, there is no more dangerous place to stand than before a just and holy God. (Why would a criminal walk into a courtroom?)

So I decided that life is not a courtroom—God is not a judge, I am not a criminal; life is…a beach. The cross is a prop that sits quietly on the horizon of my life while I attend to more important things—earning a living, raising children, preparing meals, doing laundry, answering email, paying bills, picking Mega Million numbers.

I was quite sure I had no need of religion. I was quite sure I could find everything I needed without bothering God. With life coaches, yoga classes, Dr. Phil, Disneyland, cable television, car/home/health/dental/life insurances, church, friends, and my iPad, I could say with confidence: my bases are covered.

Easter rolls around and all of a sudden strange words—proper nouns—appear in the subject lines of emails in my inbox—Lent, Pontius Pilate, Barabbas, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Passover, Easter Bunny.  The strange words disclose a disturbing claim:

God (a spirit),

in Jesus (a man),

suffered and died on a cross,

because of me,

instead of me,

out of love for me.

(My head hurts. I’m still recovering from Christmas. Very ready for Mother’s Day.)

If a bloody crucifixion is the solution, I have extremely underestimated the problem. When I deny that my sins are active offenses against God, when I don’t take them seriously enough, Easter doesn’t let me get away with it.

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He came to heal the sick.

Well, I look up directions before leaving the house. I take a multivitamin pill every morning. I believe I’m a decent person. On a 1-10 scale of likability, I’m probably an 8.5. I have no (known) enemies. I don’t lie, cheat, or steal (except at Del Taco, where I bag far more napkins and Del Scorcho sauce than I need). I try really hard to resist texting while driving, report real numbers on my income taxes, say “please” and “thank you,” read to my kids, buckle up, be on time. I’m supposed to believe that I am undeserving of God’s grace and that there is no good reason for God to love me. But really, what’s there not to love?

It looks like I’m going to need a lot more than a support group and a good sermon, a priest and some penance, to make it through this life and into the next alive.

So now I have this 2,012-year-old crucifixion/resurrection event I have to reconcile with my conscience, this death of Jesus I am allegedly partly responsible for. As if I need one more thing to think about. As if decisions about my children’s education, my father’s future with Alzheimer’s disease, my career, and what to cook for dinner aren’t enough to make my head explode.

Easter is an inconvenient truth, right up there with global warming.

I continue to disqualify myself for Christianity. I don’t care nearly enough about what transpired between Adam and Eve and the serpent in Eden, and what transpired on the cross at Calvary. Yet, God continues to exploit His free will by justifying sinners like me.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. Every Easter.

Christmas comes and goes.

The real Jesus is not necessarily the one in my heart; He is the one in Bethlehem. Christmas offers me the God who is actually there. Today, my faith is given an anchor. A face. A name. A body.

When I wrestle with the truth of Christianity, I must wrestle with this body—the body in the manger, who is the body on the cross, who is the body missing in the grave. In this body is contained the story of the world, the meaning of life, the purpose of my existence.

But thinking too long and hard about Jesus at Christmastime can sabotage my Christmas experience. There is no quicker way to get me to put down my cup of hot cocoa and shut off “Jingle Bell Rock” than bringing to mind the baby who was born to die—and his mother who would watch in helpless horror as her 33-year-old little boy is crucified on the tree of knowledge.

The spirit of Christmas—coming home, baking cookies, giving gifts, spreading love/peace/joy—is much more marketable than the facts of Christmas. It is much more pleasant to believe in Santa than to believe in Jesus. Only those who need to believe in Jesus during the “happiest time of the year” do.

So to get through Christmas without being too intense about it, I busy myself with hanging lights, shopping lists, shipping deadlines, sending cards, wrapping presents. I distance myself from the reality of Christmas, the theology of Christmas. I save my intense emotions for Easter.

No wonder Christmas is never quite what I hope for. When Christmas ends, it feels more like I’ve completed a project than beheld the face of God.

Christmas is still the best time of year because Jesus is everywhere—at least symbolically. Christmas brings out the best in sinners. It celebrates everything that is good in the world. Every year, I am impressed by how little joy, hope, peace, and love sinners really need to get by. Perhaps that is why Santa will always have more fans and followers than Jesus.

The hope of salvation offered in the Incarnation—God entering the world in a flesh-and-blood body to bear our sins and earn our righteousness—belongs even to those of us who call ourselves Christians but haven’t reflected on Jesus, didn’t go to church today, and couldn’t tell you why exactly he is the “reason for the season”. Christmas belongs especially to those of us who still don’t quite believe in a good God, a personal God, a literal God.

The miracle of Christmas: the meaning of the Incarnation is not dependent on the ability to understand it or celebrate it; it is dependent on itself, its own occurrence.

The actual, historical event of Christ’s birth frees Christmas to be whatever it was this year. And that offers me a silent night, a holy night.

The "wonderful plan" is overrated.

I became a Christian because I was told God loved me and had a “wonderful plan” for my life. I envisioned a delightful marriage. Obedient children. A comfortable income. Manageable bills. Minimal pain. A meaningful existence.

Most of God’s plan for me has been revealed— who I’d marry, how many children we’d have, where we’d live, what life would look like and feel like.

Marriage is sometimes delightful, sometimes miserable. My children obey when they are happy, fed, and well-rested. Income is comfortable unless something breaks unexpectedly (the car, roof, pipes). Bills are manageable as long as I stay off Amazon.com and stick to my list at the grocery store. Pain used to be minimal but is increasing as my father’s Alzheimer’s Disease progresses.

“Wonderful” is an overstatement.

Now that I’m over the rainbow, Christianity is turning out to be about something else: my sins. (I feel like the victim of a bait-and-switch business scheme. Why haven't I walked away by now?)

I justify all of my sins some of the time, and some of my sins all the time. I have learned to accommodate my shortcomings for so long that I don’t even recognize many of them as sins anymore. Judging others, for example, and discontentment.

Confession is an exasperating and humiliating exercise. I avoid it as long as I can. When I do get around to it, it feels futile, because I know I’m always only dealing with the top one or two of an endless list. It’s like spotting a mouse that managed to sneak into your house. One mouse equals one hundred more. It’s just a matter of time before they find their way in.

With this attitude, who would subscribe to my faith? I was much more winsome—happy, optimistic, attractive—when I believed Christianity was about how to realize God’s wonderful plan for my life (and yours). Now I am solemn and serious, the way I imagine a person feels after receiving a donated liver. Someone had to die so that I could live.

If I were an unbeliever, I would not be attracted to me. I would be attracted to…Joel Osteen. Rick Warren. Joyce Meyer. They are all poster children for the kind of Christianity I thought I signed up for.

I have to admit: I have always been more interested in happiness than in salvation. Without the incentive of a “wonderful plan”, I have little desire for God.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism declares that the meaning of life is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever” (Question 1). The catechism is probably right. But honestly, I don’t get it.

Clearly, I cannot and should not “incarnate the Gospel”. Jesus must—and does—speak for himself.

Experience is optional.

My younger self would judge my present spiritual life a complete failure.

I can read about Christ’s sufferings, watch The Passion of the Christ, hear sermon after sermon about the height, length, width, and depth of God’s love for me, and remain completely unaffected and unchanged. Like my husband saying to me, “I love you”, the words don’t warm my heart the way they used to. I despise Dayspring e-cards, Christian t-shirts and photo frames, crosses and doves.

If salvation depends at all on spiritual maturity, I’m screwed.

Perhaps I gravitate toward events like “Church on the Beach” and mountaintop retreats because they help me feel more spiritual than I really am. Perhaps it is because I am un-spiritual that I enjoy churches that try hard to offer me a true spiritual experience. I welcome all the props—from traditional maple pews, elevated pulpits, and stained glass, to acoustic music, couches, candlelight, and coffee. For about ninety minutes, I get to feel “connected” to God and His people.

The upshot of spiritual deficiency is the opportunity to experience the beauty of objectively true religion: Spiritual experience is optional. Sometimes I “feel” God, most times I don’t. Sometimes I “hear” God, most times I don’t. Big deal. No part of my salvation (justification) depends on my prayer life, my devotional life, my church life, my worship, my sanctification. I am free to lead a boring, hum-drum life that doesn’t want to travel, try new foods, or meet new people. Clothed in Christ’s righteousness, God accepts my unspirituality—overdue prayers, broken worship, damaged faith. The efficacy of Jesus’ life and death in saving me is secured in history; nothing that happens today—to anybody, anywhere—can change the facts.  

Those of us who don’t have a lot to show in the area of sanctification, who aren’t “spiritual” enough to experience God’s activity in extraordinary ways, find assurance of His presence through ordinary, old fashioned means—in good preaching, in baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper. God’s grace for unspiritual people is as real as the Word we hear, the water we touch, the bread and wine we taste. When we partake of these, we are assured: He is our God, we are His people—no matter how we happen to feel today.

Every once in a while, I do crave “intimacy” with God and won’t settle for the kind of meaningful moment that can be manufactured with Hillsongs, a journal, and a latte. Someone once told me, “When you want to chop a piece of wood in half, you don’t aim the blade of the ax at the wood; you aim for the chopping block underneath the wood.” Don’t aim for experience; aim for understanding—understanding what Christianity actually is.

Contrary to the belief that theological understanding kills spiritual experience, when I actually comprehend what transpired at the cross and believe that in Christ my guilt was exchanged for His righteousness, I experience the Holy Spirit applying the work of Christ to me. Theological understanding is spiritual experience.

The value of Christianity is not determined by its emotional impact; it is determined by its truthfulness. After experience and emotions are consumed, only truth remains.

Bad is better.

If you are willing to be a “bad” Christian, you are ready to be a true Christian. If you insist on being a “good Christian,” you will never get on your way to experiencing a real life of faith. The pursuit to be a good Christian is an illegitimate quest. You must be a bad Christian or no Christian at all.

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away” (Isaiah 64:6).

When we set out to follow Christ, sometimes we expect to look like a champion marathoner. We envision ourselves running steadily on a dirt path through a beautiful amber canyon at dawn, a bird chirping while a gentle wind conveniently nudges us forward. But as many of us have already experienced, there is a gap between the ideal and the actual—between fantasy Christianity and real Christianity. Instead of running like olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner (“Flo-Jo”), we run like a college freshman making a mad dash for the campus shuttle that is pulling away from the curb. Complete with spilled coffee on our shirt, heavy backpack slugged over one shoulder and arms flailing, we yell, “Wait!”

And we wonder: Am I going to be a rookie-Christian forever?

The short answer is: Yes. When we recognize Jesus Christ as the only "expert" Christian, we will realize that even the best we can offer is not so hot. Nobody has it together. Not Billy Graham, not Charles Spurgeon, not R.C. Sproul, not even Mr. Mere Christianity himself, C.S. Lewis. Only Jesus had it together. No believer will ever "arrive" at the apex of discipleship; only Jesus arrived. On the spectrum of Christ-likeness, every one of us will (for the rest of our lives) have to settle somewhere in between total success and total failure.

I find being a rookie-Christian repulsive, and yet ... strangely attractive. Rookies are amateurs. Goof-ups. Immature and inexperienced. These are not words I would choose to describe the kind of person I aspire to be. In fact, these are words I would use to describe a “bad Christian.” There is nothing initially appealing about being a rookie; that is, until you consider the qualifications required to be a "good Christian.

Think of it. To be considered a good Christian, you’d have to think all the right thoughts, say all the right words, do all the right things and have all the right motivations—all the time. Basically, you'd have to be Jesus. If that attempt isn’t a slow and painful death, then I don’t know what is! And yet, so often I place this heavy yoke of being a good Christian on myself. So often, in my efforts to be a faithful, worthy disciple, I end up killing myself. Because in order to be good, holy, upright and blameless, I have to resist my humanity, deny my limitations and suppress my fears. On top of that, I have to feed a secret desire to be like God. Having it "together" comes at a high—yes, impossible, price.

God loves rookies. God loves those who stumble toward Him. The beauty of the Gospel is this: We do not have to be Jesus. But we do have to be His disciples: imperfect, fallible, selfish and sinful, yet deeply loved, always accepted and ever changing to be more like Christ. We do not have to get over our weaknesses; we only have to get used to them. A pastor once said, “We live and minister out of weakness.” Every time I remember this, I breathe a sigh of relief. Christian growth is not turning every one of our weaknesses into strengths, but learning how to live with our weaknesses, and even with some of our sins.

If we want to be real Christians, we must learn how to be weak people: dependent as a branch, malleable as a heap of clay, needy as a baby. When we realize that we bring nothing to our relationship with God except a broken heart and contrite spirit, it is then we will experience God’s grace to be sufficient, and God’s love to be unfailing. Paul understood this, saying, “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10, emphasis added).

We should be grateful that God never asks us to "get it together." He only asks us to admit our need for the One who had it together and allow Him to represent and change us. Believe it or not, God is content with our needs and our shortcomings. He proved this by choosing to die for us when we were in our worst (but also our truest) condition—while we were sinners.

Chances are, you are still a sinner. And the last time I checked, I'm still one, too.

 

(This article was featured as a guest post on November 7, 2011, on Kimberly Crandall's blog, Christ in the Chaos.)

Fall away.

The daily Christian life is a cycle of coming and going. Leaving and returning. Now I’m here, now I’m not. Now I love God, now I don’t. Now I surrender, now I won’t.

(How does God put up with this?)

Consistency, commitment, conviction. Problem, problem, problem.

I’ve tried regular exercise of the “spiritual disciplines”, as well as accountability groups, retreats, sermons, seminars, self-authored contracts, conferences, CDs, and many, many books purchased at my local Christian bookstore.

Still, good intentions erode, passion fades, will-power expires. (And it’s only 10 a.m.)

And then Christianity feels like an everlasting climb up a descending escalator—tiring, tedious, and unconvincing. Instead of turning up my iPod and putting one foot in front of the other like a “strong Christian”, I let my feet hit the floor. (I guess I’m not a strong Christian.)

And it is here I realize just what kind of God I need. I need the God who possesses more consistency, commitment, and conviction than I do. I need the God who will fall away from heaven and descend to me. I need the God who will keep coming and coming, even though I keep leaving.

Falling away is a daily phenomenon. But so is redemption.

Less is more.

After almost twenty years of calling myself a Christian, I expect near-professional status by now. I should be praying for the entire world, giving lots of money to worthy causes, frequenting overseas missions fields, sharing the gospel with my neighbors, confessing my sins daily, reading the Bible regularly, showing up at church every Sunday.

I forget to pray before I eat.

I give too much money to Target. And Starbucks.

I’ve been on only one mission trip (five weeks in China).

I’ve never shared my faith with any of my neighbors (though I have baked Christmas cookies for them).

I am slow to admit my sins (ask the husband), and even slower at confessing them.

I can’t remember the last time I had a real, solid Quiet Time.

I listen to lots of hip hop. (This was not always the case.)

Forget “radical” discipleship and “crazy love”; I can barely manage a nominal Christian life (i.e., repent-believe-repeat).

My sins are ever before me. They seem to compound year after year, like credit card interest. I do not get better as I grow older; I get worse. I can’t adequately express how shocked I am by this. Who knew that marriage, motherhood, mortgage payments, aging parents, and all of life’s demands would bring out not the best in me but the worst?

The bad news: I am not legacy material. Nothing will be named in my memory.

The good news: My progressively dire circumstances are perfect for the Gospel to thrive. The need for a righteousness outside of myself—in Christ—is obvious when I am increasingly ashamed of what I am within.

After twenty years of negative progress, there is no reason for me to think that the next twenty (or sixty) years will be any different. I have every reason to believe that God will only continue to prune everything “good” in me, in order that on the day I die, I might actually and finally believe: I am a sinner.

Sin boldly.

Grace, God’s favor toward the most undeserving people, comes across as too ridiculous to be true. It is Santa Claus visiting only the homes of naughty children, leaving them X-Boxes, Disneyland tickets, and ponies. There is something fishy about grace that makes me look for the fine print.

I understand the concept of a deserved gift—giving worthy charities millions of dollars because they’re making a difference in the world, giving God our time, talents, and treasure because He is good—but no category in my mind exists for undeserved gifts. An undeserved gift is just absurd.

An undeserved gift has the ring of a sales gimmick, like a letter informing me that I’ve won a free vacation and all I need to do to redeem my prize is call the 800-number.

Good people should be rewarded; bad people should be punished. Do good things, go to heaven. Do bad things, go to hell. You get what you’ve earned and deserve. That is how the human psyche is wired.

Grace defies the human psyche. God justifies sinners, declaring them righteous even though they are still sinners. Sinners are treated as saints. Bad people are treated as good people. And all this for free.

Gifts don’t demand reciprocation or repayment. They are really and truly free. The problem is, the consumer in me doesn’t believe in gifts, doesn’t believe in free. There is always a cost and a catch.

The cost: A morally perfect life and sin-atoning death. Jesus merited the obedience that God required of Adam and of Israel and of every human being. He performed for me all the good works that God will ever demand from me. Jesus was saved by works so that I can be saved by grace.

The catch: This good news is supposed to produce a “new obedience” in me so that I actually want to obey God with new motives of love and gratitude. But more often, the gospel awakens the lawbreaker in me, revealing that I am even more rebellious and self-serving than I had feared. Instead of running into the arms of God with renewed love, I run from God, eager to experiment with antinomianism and push the limits of grace.

God, who really should strike me dead immediately, is gracious and allows me to explore my prodigality and learn the hard way. God grants my wish to taste and touch everything the world has to offer. He knows His grace is real and can afford to be tried in order to prove true. So, why not? Sin boldly. In 1521, Martin Luther wrote a letter to his friend Philip Melanchthon, saying,

“If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger…No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day.”

For 40 days, I can try to disqualify myself for grace. I can eliminate every reason for God to let me into heaven and give Him every reason to send me to hell. Do nothing for God. Don’t pray. Don’t open my Bible. Go to Vegas instead of church. Cut people off. Use cusswords. Get drunk. Idolize money, education, success, fame. Go wild. (Theoretically, I could go so far as committing murder, adultery, and the more heinous crimes, but I already get the point.)

God knows it's only a matter of time before I come to my senses. Christians can’t enjoy sin properly because they don’t really want to sin. They’re too conscious of God and of guilt. Christians will never commit the most creative crimes. They can’t even run away from home effectively because home is where they really want to be.

When I make my way back to my Father’s house, I can only hope that he’ll take me back, as a servant. Grace assures me that I’ll be received, again and again and again, not as a servant, but as a son. Grace means that even if I leave again, when I return I’ll get another party. Absurd.

What makes salvation by grace a true gift and not a gimmick is that it is a one-way transaction, from God to me. Everything God needed in order to offer us salvation with no strings attached, He provided in Christ. Jesus absorbed all the costs involved. Jesus works every good deed through me, so that even the “catch” of a new, voluntary obedience cannot intimidate me. There is no negotiation involved, no deal to close. The only thing that hinders me from taking God up on the offer is the inability to believe the offer is true. So God not only provides Jesus to accomplish my salvation, but He also provides the faith necessary to accept this salvation. From beginning to end, it is God paying for every cost, answering every objection, fulfilling every condition so that He can give, and give freely. The offer:

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk, without money and without cost.”

Only the Christian God could have dreamed up a salvation like this. Only this God would take it upon Himself—in Christ—to fulfill His own demands so that He can save His people by grace without compromising His justice. Only this God insists on saving His people at His own expense. Only this God gives them the righteousness He requires and then judges them by it:

“Not guilty.”

Ask for stuff.

For the past two years, I’ve been praying for bedroom furniture. That’s right—a bed frame, a dresser, two nightstands, and two good bedside lamps for reading (or at least one, for my side). There are dozens of furniture stores. Plus, there’s Costco. Why not just pick something and be done with it?

You don’t understand. I’ve had vivid visions of myself lying in this plush, feathery, presidential suite-type bed. The frame is soft to the touch, not hard (they’re called upholstered bed frames, in case you didn’t know). I am under a white comforter made of Egyptian cotton, surrounded by embroidered sham pillows. I am lying there reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Toni Morrison or C.S. Lewis, illuminated by a pewter swinging sconce.  A cup of hot peppermint tea is steaming on my cherry wood nightstand. The husband is downstairs watching CSI. There are no dogs barking, no cars honking, no kids crying.

Still, just pick something.

Consider my parents. They’re still using the bedroom set they bought when they got married. Consider my husband’s parents. They’re still using the bedroom set they bought when they got married. Consider thousands of other American couples who are lying in the same bed, using the same dresser, dusting the same nightstands they’ve had for thirty or forty or fifty years.

Buying bedroom furniture is like buying a wedding band. It’s too inconvenient and expensive to replace. You only get one. Forever. So you better pick something you love.

I’m thinking Restoration Hardware. Or Ethan Allen.

Now you understand. We’re talking already-assembled pieces. Real wood. Maybe even monthly payments. Costco’s not going to cut it.

There’s a little voice in the back of my head that keeps saying, Are you kidding me? There are people suffering from terminal illnesses, children dying of hunger, men trying to figure out how not to spill oil in the ocean, orphans in China awaiting adoption, puppies starving in puppy mills… Bedroom furniture?

Uh, yeah.

I also pray about food (what to feed my children three times a day), money (how to have more of it), the broken hose in our backyard (that it won’t ruin my husband’s weekend—because it very well could)… I pray for my friends, my family, my kids, my health, my desires, my life. See the pattern?

Richard Foster gives selfish prayer a nice name: Simple Prayer. “Simple Prayer involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father. There is no pretense in Simple Prayer. We do not pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are…” (Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home)

I used to think that I should outgrow saying ordinary, self-centered prayers and say more “other-centered” prayers. I used to think that only spiritually immature people pray for themselves and their interests over and over and over. Only spiritually immature people ask God for stuff. Spiritually sophisticated people, on the other hand, have learned to rise above their “felt needs.” They ask God to transform them, challenge them, and use them. Sophisticated Christians pray for the concerns that are on God’s mind and heart, not theirs. They spend lots of time praying for the “lost,” which is commendable. Sophisticated Christians don’t ask God for incidentals, for stuff.

But as I grow older, my felt needs are multiplying. I need money more than ever before; life is turning into a giant pile of bills—mortgage, utilities, cell phone, groceries, gasoline, diapers, wedding gifts, birthday presents, school tuition, Happy Meals, crayons, stickers, etc. I also feel the need for a social life more than ever before, particularly with other working moms. Then there's "me time," a need I feel particularly strongly about. And to say I need a professional housecleaner is an understatement. If I must go on, I need a sense of purpose that extends beyond being a parent. Let me top off this list with my need for ten tips to build a healthy marriage, seven ways to raise happy kids, and five secrets for staying slim. I am, in essence, a body of felt needs.   

Thus, my prayers are becoming less sophisticated, more self-centered. It’s as though my sanctification is stuck in reverse and I’m immaturing into a kid who believes that the world revolves around her. I rarely pray for the world. I rarely pray for the missionaries in distant lands. I’ve stopping asking God to end world hunger, to help doctors find a cure for cancer, to clean up after tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes. I can’t seem to make it that far down my list of things to pray for. Which is why I never pray for President Obama. He simply isn’t in the top ten.

I suppose this is why I depend on the pastoral prayer at church to cover all the areas of prayer that I miss at home.

“By praying for the needs of the world, the government’s leaders, the church universal, as well as for the needs of a particular church, we learn in our public prayers what we too often neglect in our private prayers: to look beyond ourselves and the interest of our own family.” (Michael Horton, A Better Way)

As physical, weak, sinful people, we are always needy.  That’s why Jesus taught His disciples to ask for daily bread. I like to think of daily bread as more than a baguette, as a category for felt needs. Daily Bread is the catch-all bucket for stuff.

I don’t think God judges our prayers when we say them. I don’t think the word “trivial” exists in God’s mind. God actually helps us to say even our most disgraceful prayers (if such a thing exists) by having Jesus intercede for us. Jesus is my personal prayer editor. I’m sure some of my prayers are completely rewritten by Jesus before they ever reach the Father. His mediation makes the prayers of sinners acceptable to a holy God.

I don’t know how to judge prayer. I don’t know who is good at praying and who isn’t. I don’t know what a “great prayer” sounds like. But I am sure the people who have mastered prayer don’t know it.

Marry a sinner.

My husband and I don’t pray together regularly. We don’t belong to a Bible study. We haven’t bothered to make plans for family devotions with our children. We’ve kind-of-sort-of begun catechizing our two-year-old, but don’t really know what we’re doing. It’s still experimental at this point. By all conventional standards of a godly marriage and godly family, we’re not.

The thing is, I was taught to marry a “godly man.” A man who loves God more than himself, and even more than me. A man who abides by the descriptions in 1 Timothy 3 (even if he is not called to be an overseer of the church) and Titus 2—temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.

My husband is a simple guy with simple faith. He works hard, plays with our children, provides for our family, calls his mother, takes out the trash, goes to church, watches ESPN. He can be incredibly impatient, insensitive, and unkind. He curses when he is angry. He is your garden-variety dude.   

On good days, I admire my husband’s ability to take God at His word. I respect his ability to follow Christ without Him having to prove His worth all the time. I covet his theological innocence. But on bad days, I criticize my husband’s faith as simplistic, untested, and unrefined. I decide his theological innocence is really theological naïveté. I convince myself that God expects more from him. I accuse him for not caring enough about spiritual growth. I commit emotional adultery by wishing that I had married somebody more like me. (As egotistical as it sounds, my perfect mate would be, essentially, a male version of me.)

Instead of holding out for a “godly man,” I chose to marry a sinner. He, too, chose to marry a sinner. My hypocrisy is exposed when my husband actually sins—when he fails to exemplify godliness, to model Christ and Christianity for my children, to lead in the area of spiritual formation—I hold his sins against him. I judge him as disobedient, ungodly, and immature. I withhold respect from him. I punish him for sinning, even though I believe Jesus has already paid for his sins. Then, as if holding his sins against him isn’t bad enough, I also manage to hold his faith against him. I argue that if he really loves God, he would put more effort into nurturing our family’s spiritual life. If he really believes that knowledge of Christ is important, he should learn the language of his faith and teach it to our children. If he really is committed to God, that commitment should be always visible, never questionable. (This guilt-tripping manipulation, this sense of entitlement, the “I deserve better” attitude...I really need to stop it.) Though I allow my husband to be a sinner in theory, I reject him when he sins in practice.

I wish I had been taught to marry a sinner. Then I wouldn’t expect my husband to be a “godly man.” I wouldn’t hold him to a standard of godliness that I know exists only in my mind and only in the person of Jesus Christ—not in real guys. I wouldn't have to work so hard to validate and justify my life.

If I allow myself to face the truth, I must admit that I am not a godly woman. I am not on fire for God, not filled with passion, not “sold out” for Jesus. On a good day, I am maybe 65% sold out, and technically, that’s not enough to be considered sold. God does not ask that I love Him as best I can; He demands that I love Him with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength. God is not exaggerating when He says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; no one who seeks God. All have turned away…” (Romans 3:10-12a). I will never be on fire enough, passionate enough, or sold out enough for Jesus.  This is a problem.I need a man who won’t let me minimize this problem and let me get away with thinking that I am ok. Believing that I am a good Christian comes naturally to me; the last thing I need is someone who reinforces this lie. I need someone who will identify with me as a sinner and stand with me under the cross.

But still, it's so hard to let go of ideals. There are times when I still want to achieve the kind of marriage that I envision in my mind. And this is where it gets murky. When I sit and dissect the situation and contemplate the solution, I have more questions than answers: What is a legitimate amount of godliness to expect of a Christian—man or woman? Just how much human cooperation is involved in the process of sanctification (the process of becoming more like Jesus in order to practice true holiness)?

The Westminster Confession of Faith says that sanctification is “imperfect in this life,” explaining that remnants of our original corruption still remain in every part of us—mind, heart, and body, which causes a continual and irreconcilable war between the flesh and the Spirit. The remnants of corruption may prevail for a time, but through the strength provided by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit does, ultimately, overcome the flesh. (Paraphrased.)

No doubt, I overestimate the progress and underestimate the imperfection of sanctification in marriage. I expect too much too soon.

For everything I still don’t know about Christian marriage, I do know this: Marriage is not a tactic of a strategic plan to accomplish a larger objective of doing great things for God, which includes cultivating a godly family. God is not some Chairman of the Board with goals, benchmarks, quarterly reviews, and annual reports. Treating marriage like a corporation and spouses like business partners strains the friendship and kills the chemistry. Nothing will grow in this kind of environment.

I am probably too simpleminded about it, but I think Christian marriage is the union of two sinners—two people who acknowledge their need for supernatural help and don’t want to face this harsh reality alone. Christian marriage can certainly mean more than this, but it cannot mean less.

For now, I think the strongest bond between a husband and wife is not mutual love for God, which can be erratic or, in my case, embarrassingly lacking. The strongest bond between a husband and wife is mutual need for a Savior. Since it is sin that always divides a marriage, the need for grace is always what unites it.

Borrow love.

I’m still trying to figure out if I really love God. I do so little that demonstrates love for God. I mean to talk to Him in prayer, but I do the dishes instead. I mean to read His Word, but I check email instead. I mean to get more involved at church, but haven't gotten around to it. I barely make it to church on Sundays.

It is possible that I only love (and I use this word very loosely) God because He loves me. It’s an obligatory, reciprocal love, the kind of love celebrities have for their fans. It’s fickle at best, fake at worst.

I always thought that if I searched deep within my heart—deep, deep, deep within—I would unearth true love for God. I could hold it up to God like a nugget of gold and smile, declaring, “See? I knew it was there. I do love you.” Instead, what I find in the depths of my heart is fear of God and need for Him, not exactly love for Him. 

Yet I continue to convince myself that I love God. I surround myself with people who love God. I act as if I love God. Philip Yancey says,

“For me, the life of faith sometimes consists of acting as if the whole thing is true. It’s much easier to act your way into feelings than to feel your way into actions...” (Reaching for the Invisible God)

The problem is, it’s all an act. I fear that the act will never actualize. But I operate on the assumption that true love for God will be cultivated in me—eventually.

Until then, God continues to love me. He loved me before I ever loved Him, and He loves me when I don't love Him. The foolishness of the gospel is that it has to be this way. If God's love was conditional like human love, it wouldn't compel a life of discipleship. It wouldn't inspire worship. It would rip out the very heart of Christianity--the scandalous nature of God's love. 

God gives me the love He wants from me. What he demands, He also provides. All my love for God is borrowed from God. If He did not provide me with love for Him, I would have no love of my own to offer Him. That God accepts His own love as mine is sheer grace.

In Putting Amazing Back into Grace, Michael Horton says,

“[God] loves us because of his own disposition, not because of ours. He can love the unlovely because he is God and he does not need a worthy object; unlike us, he can simply choose to love as he pleases. And if there is anything standing in the way of his love, he is powerful enough to remove the obstacle. The cross, of course, demonstrates the lengths he was willing to go for those he loved.”

I wish I could love God with the same kind of love with which He loves me. Love that is independent of its object. Love that is given and given and given, even if it is never received. Love that does not stand outside of bars, bedrooms, and brothels, but follows you in. Love that isn't quantified, calculated, or strategized. 

Because of the curse of the Fall, I think my love for God will always be somewhat selfish and shallow, motivated partly by fear, partly by guilt, and partly by a sense of duty. My love for God will always be broken.

God is love. Perfect love. I cannot improve on that or add to it. That God himself is love frees Him to save me without having to first be loved by me.

The good news is: Love for God is not what ultimately saves us; the love of God is.

What a relief.