Friday, March 27, 2009

I'm Not Worthy

All my life, I have been dogged with the idea of discipline and my lack thereof. Holiness. Righteousness. Obedience. These are all good things. But the ideas of them have sat in judgement of me. I have felt so condemned for so long.

They echo a theme in my life. I am not good enough. I have to try harder. If I only loved God more, than I would obey him more.

Where is the freedom to be? To let go? Why do we always feel it necessary to remind ourselves and each other of why God is merciful? To "temper" his compassion with the reason for it - that we are not worthy. It is for our sakes that God has loved us. Or is it?

I, yes I, am the one who blots out your offenses for my own sake;
I will not remember your sins.
- Isaiah 43:25, emphasis mine

I mentioned a couple of posts ago the meaning of my name, Amanda - beloved, worthy to be loved, lovable - and that I have thought it a cruel joke for a long time. (I will spare you the reiteration of why.) The truth is I have been waiting for some official validation, someone to disclose my redeeming quality that would justify my existence. I could point to it or name it and immediately self-confidence would flow through me and the person I was proving myself to would then acknowledge my worthiness. Maybe even be in jealous awe.

But what if I lost my redeeming quality? Or what if it got tarnished or fell out of fashion? What if I met someone who had the same one - but better? Or someone who just didn't like it?

I have, by the way, lived this out so many times. I make these laundry lists of why people might like me and I invariably cannot measure up in the end. Or the part of me that I tried to make the whole basis of my worth was rejected. The tailspin from that is uncontrollable.

And I am tired of cataloguing everything. My faults. My sins. Reasons why my friends might love me.

"By loving me you have made me lovable."
- St. Augustine

I have wanted that to be true from so many sources - parents, friends, colleagues, crushes - and have repeatedly rejected the one constant, unconditional, immovable, and proven source.

All I have to know is that God loves me. I don't have to know why. I cannot know why. Because God is love, and who can fully wrap their minds around God?

God does not love me for my potential. God does not love the me I want to be. Or think I should be.

God LOVES me as I am now.

God loves ME as I am now.

God loves me as I am NOW.

Jesus is my redeeming quality. Jesus living in me, through me.

I've balked so long the idea of "finding my identity in Christ". It sounds so . . . Borgish. Like I'm to be a Jesus clone with no personality and no desires/dreams of my own. But...
  1. Do I really believe Jesus was bland and boring?
  2. Do I really believe the God that made me me at this time, in this place, with my experiences and personality would then turn around and not use this material, raw as it is?
The freedom of Jesus being my redeeming quality (and all my other awesomeness being icing on the cake) - it's 180 degrees from what I've thought mattered for so long. The pressure of trying to be someone else and the pressure of making myself appear worthy - God or no God, for those of you who think I've gone off the Jesus deep end - is blessedly lessening.

In this, too, I am coming to realize that I may always care what other people think of me, much as I would love to drop that immediately. But I am learning to not care as much. And also learning the joy of that old Sunday School song - "O, how I love Jesus because he first loved me."

1 comment:

Amanda Faith Moore said...

As I read over this, I see the capitalization in the sentence I repeat, "God love me as I am now." And there is the heart of me: LOVE(S) ME NOW. My constant need for attention and the resulting emotional rollercoaster - up and down, depending on if I felt loved at the moment - is why I took a break in the first place. Nice to know this is where I'm headed: knowing I'm loved at every moment regardless of my performance. :)