As I Am
Sometimes I find myself approaching my relationship to God in the same way some people approach a diet. First, you start off great- days of nothing but bran cereal for breakfast, salads for lunch, and chicken for dinner, but then temptation becomes too great and you polish off a whole box of cookies! And instead of picking up where you left off, you immediately think that you’ve ruined everything so you might as well eat that pint of ice cream too!
I’m learning to not let myself fall into that same pattern with my relationship with God. That type of thinking has kept me form ever reading completely through the Bible. It has stopped me from praying about the things I desire for my life. It has kept me from sharing my beliefs with others. In short it has held me back from growing spiritually. I think sometimes we believe that in order to be truly useful to God or truly worthy of anything He might want for us, we need to be “spiritually together” –whatever our ideas of that might be.
But we sang a song the other week that reminded me that God doesn’t want us to wait until we are “spiritually together.” If He did, He might be waiting forever. The song said, “I will praise you as I am.” I think that is exactly what we need to remember. Even if we’ve eaten a “whole box of cookies” (so to speak) we can’t give in! We pick up where we left off – If you forget to read the Bible one day, it’s okay, still read it the next. Don’t let the fact that you may still struggle with a sin prevent you from sharing your faith. Praise Him as you are! I’m trying to remember that…Praise Him as I am…as I am…praise Him.
Amen and Amen. As a perfectionist, I find myself always waffling between desiring to commit to the spiritual disciplines and wanting to give up because I’m not good enough and never will be. What a beautiful thought– I will praise Him as I am… as I am. Thanks for this transparency and honesty. I have really appreciated reading through this blog.
As I was reading your post it made me think of how much I often things in terms of failure and defeat. In many areas from eating healthy to relationships to my walk with God, I tend to assume that I will fail or be defeated. The result is that this generally saps my energy and motivation. I mean why try if you are simply going to fail again anyway?
But recently I have started to be enamored with God as a God of victory. God wins. Not just some of the time, but all of the time. In Phillipians Paul writes about “forgetting what lies behind and pressing on.” I am finding in my own life I need to recognize that I am not what I was. I am not the nerdy, failing, deformed person I think of. I am something new. A new creation. I have true victory in all things through Jesus. I need to forget yesterday and press on to be who I am as a “little christ”. That makes me smile.