Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Just as You Are

I don't know about you guys, but I am a big fan of the P&W. That's right, praise and worship. Just like Jamie Grace, I like to "get my worship on," ya feel me? Anyways, one of my favorite songs is actually a really simple one (which is great because that means I can actually play it on the guitar...). Maybe you have heard of it. It's called "Come, Now Is The Time To Worship." In this song, there is a really cool line that says, "Come, just as you are to worship. Come, just as you are before your God. Come." It's actually like half of the song, but that's besides the point. I was singing this when the lyrics hit me. Come, just as you are. Before your God.

It reminded me of the homily that Fr. Mike Schmitz gave this Christmas Eve. He talked about the Little Drummer Boy, and after a couple tangents discussed the fact that this boy came before the Lord to "play his best for him." Elaborating on this point, he talks about how the Lord doesn't actually just want us to bring us our best, but also our worst. He wants us just how we are, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Here's how these two ideas line up: to come before our God just as we are means He wants everything. He knows exactly who we are, what we've done, how we feel, how we are hurt, what needs healing, what needs cleaning; simply put, He knows us better than any other person ever could, including ourselves. And He wants us to bring it all to Him. Just because He knows what we suffer, that doesn't mean that He's just going to barge into our lives and clean up our mess without our permission. Maybe we are like hoarders in our souls and hang on to everything and aren't ready to give it up. Everything gets messy and chaotic. Jesus ain't gonna go in there and tidy it up for you if you won't let Him in the door. But we don't have to keep Him at the threshold of our heart afraid to open the door, embarrassed by the mess inside.

Maybe your soul looks like this... 


The other day, I was talking with my mom who was preparing to host a couple of friends for a card night at our house. She said to me, "You know, Mrs. So-and-so always has such a perfectly kept home. Whenever she invites people over, not only is her house immaculately clean, she always cooks the perfect meal with the perfectly complimentary hors d'oeuvres etc., but do you know what? She knows that I'm not like that. So I'm not going to just hide all of our crap and pretend that our house is always clean, because guess what... it isn't. Ever."

This is my soul... Bahahahahaha. Jokes. 


You know, maybe it was a superficial concern, but there is actually a lot of truth to this. Jesus knows our souls. If we try to hide all of our crap, it's just us pretending. We can put on nice clothes and go to church, but if our soul is messy, God's going to see right through it. And it's okay! He knows that we are like that. He isn't disturbed or upset that our life is a complete wreck, because He already knows! In fact, that's why Jesus came here on earth. He wants to be right with us in the midst of our crazy, messy, dirty lives. When He was born here on earth, as my home priest pointed out, it wasn't in a highly sanitary hospital. Nope, it was in a barn with a bunch of dirty animals. He laid in a feeding trough. He had rags to wear.

Moral of the story: we don't have to be ashamed of our mess. We just need to come before the Lord, just as we are and let him into our messy hearts. Let Him come and fix us, heal us, clean us, and love us. He already knows everything. We just need to give it to Him and trust his hand in our lives. Now I'm not saying that He's going to go all Bruno Mars like, "there's not a thing that I would change, because you're amazing, just the way you are." Actually, if we let Him in for real, we won't be able to help but change. Because the truth is, Jesus loves us, mess and all, but if we really love Him, we're going to want to let Him change us. Also mentioned in Fr. Mike's homily, Romans 5:6-8 says:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Just at the right time, He came into our world and died for us, broken, messy, dirty, sinners. We can't let that love go to waste.  

Let Him in!! 

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