This morning, I sat on my kitchen floor surrounded by three loads of laundry, trying to entice my three year old to let me take off her very full Pull-up from the night before. She was busy taking the Russian nesting doll magnets on and off the magnetized, chalkboard-painted pantry beside our stainless steel fridge. My very sleepy, almost one-year old son saw my empty lap... and an opportunity. I was calling to his sister, but he crawled into my lap with lightning speed and stretched his body out, belly up, a smile stretching across his sticky face as he relaxed and sank down. His sister soon followed, her urine-soaked ballerina PJ's making full contact with the knee of the faded yoga pants that are older than our marriage.
I know that the years will be too short- everyone on Facebook keeps reminding me, especially with back to school in full swing- so we sat there, the three of us, smelling like syrup and pee-pee, and I let a few minutes ooze by like the Aunt Jemima Light that had taken just a few milliseconds to itself before covering Mickey Mouse's waffle face earlier in the morning.
I read a verse recently-2 Thessalonians 1:11. Here it is.
With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.
My mind has been exploring identity for so long. Maybe it is the journey of my life, the story that I will tell myself over and over and over again. Because it seems that I lose sight of the slivers of truth I discover every time I blink my eyes. But here is this snapshot- of a Parent calling his children into his lap.
God is a parent. A Father-Mother. It took both Adam and Eve to reflect his image. And today I need this image of this Parent calling, and messy children filling his lap.
It's hard to feel worthy. The entire world is sort of set up to make us feel like we have to do something to be worthy to live in it. This takes on so many different faces. Have children. Make money. Lose weight. Accomplish goals. Build. Design. Create. Save. Be relevant. Make yourself interesting. Look good. It's exhausting.
What I love about this verse to the Thessalonians is that the worth follows the calling. God is calling his children. Like a mother on the floor of a kitchen. Come here- sticky, pee-soaked, beautiful creation of mine. Come here to me. I am calling you. Just as you are.
This is what I'm learning about who I am- the worth is because of the calling. But the two cannot be separated. I am called, therefore I am worthy. And the calling doesn't really have to do with "doing" anything. We talk about calling a lot in Christian culture- God "calls" us to serve in different ways, to live in different places. But those sort of "calls" change as life changes. God is creative with his children. He lets us move around and do different things. But this call here- this is the call to all of us. The one call that makes all the others possible. This is the call to come to him and be filled with the power we need to be a worthy member of his family.
Let me see this invitation and sprawl, belly up and smiling, and stare into this holy Parent's beautiful face. Let me believe that because I was called here, I am worthy to be here- in all of my mess and pain and striving and failing and thinking and feeling. Let me see him welcome all of his children into a lap so unimaginably big that there is room for all of us who are being called. Everyone come. There's plenty of room. And nothing delights his heart more.
In coming to him, I am being made worthy by him. Because he's called me to be his. His flesh and blood. His hands and his feet in the world he sent his Son into, and then brought him back out of. I am worthy of being a part of this because I have been pulled by grace into his Father-Mother arms. He breathes me in and fills me with his very life, and this gives his heart gladness and joy. He rejoices because I am there. I rejoice because I am wanted. I am loved. I am understood just as I am.
And he gives me his power to go out and do those other callings. To really be him to the world. His flesh and blood. His hands. His feet. His voice. His heart. How else could I do it if not through his power? And yet, what I am learning is that nothing is more important than being him. Because there are so many other voices out there telling everyone what they need to change in order to be worthy. What they should or shouldn't look like or accomplish or feel like inside. Wealth and beauty and youth and affluence are calling. Relevance and productivity and achievement are calling. Legalism and self-righteousness and pride are calling. People will say to you, with their words or their actions or their silence- you are not worthy. Try not to listen. Try to hear this calling instead. Try to see the Father-Mother, the holy Parent, who kneeled down farther than any of us could ever have imagined, and became sin for us, so that we can come into his lap and be held and told- you are worthy of being my flesh, my blood.
I'm trying to sit in his lap this morning and let the minute ooze by. I'm trying to let this calling replace the rejection that has pierced my heart 1000 times and made me feel so deeply unworthy. I'm trying to let grace surround the messiest places of me and believe that I am worthy.
Father, receive me now as I answer your calling. The calling to be yours. Let your voice soothe my restless heart that has so deeply believed that I must change or do or accomplish or clean up or fix or become something in order to be worthy, in order to be accepted. Help me rest here in your arms. Help me to believe that I was wanted. That I was bought at a price. That I am worthy. That I am desired and loved. Please make me worthy of the calling you freely give to me. Give me your power to accomplish all the other callings. To become like you in my heart and my mind and my actions. Help me to reflect you rightly- to be Jesus to the people that I love- the ones that I like and the ones that I don't like. The ones that like me and the ones that don't like me. It scares me to think of the damage that's being done in the world by people just like me, who associate with your Name, but aren't resting here and receiving your power to do your will. Forgive me for doing that very thing and change me. Let me be yours and let that be enough. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment