You betta, you betta, you bet.

At church today, I was feeling a little discouraged. A little angry at myself for failing to be more outgoing this weekend. It's like...well, it's like what he said at church today, "I'm an introvert who pretends to be an extrovert." And sometimes, that really does not work out. So, the thought has been rolling around in my head (for awhile now, actually):

When am I going to get better?

You see, it's really easy for me to buy into the lie that my life would magically be better if I was more outgoing / confident. If I was different or if I was more like some of my friends who make it look so darn easy or if I could just get over whatever the heck is keeping me from being a normal human being, THEN my life would really start and I wouldn't have to worry about anything.

Dumb.

But I do it all the time! I have SO much trouble accepting that God didn't screw up when he made me. And this leads to lots and lots of sin. There's no weaseling around that. Being bitter about the way God made me (cuz that's really what I'm doing, isn't it?) is sin.

I love the way the end of Romans 12:3 is written in the Message Bible:

The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

When I look at myself with a judgmental, sinful, human perspective, I feel like I'm failing. And you know what? Maybe from the world's view I am. But when the LORD looks at me? He sees my heart. He sees my love for him. He sees the cross, the blood that was shed for my sin. And he says, "It is very good."

And there's more! The areas in my life that need some work are places where my Father's light is BURSTING to shine through. My sin is ugly and there are pieces of my heart that are broken, but still, the LORD is enthralled by me [Psalm 45].

How? Why? The distance between my shame and his glory is unfathomable. But this is the thought that crept into my mind this morning:

Where I see failing, he sees opportunity. He sees spaces in my heart he longs to fill. He sees mountains he's aching to climb with me. He sees depths of my soul that no one else can, and his voice is calling out, Come be with me.

I feel like the prostitute in Hosea. She keeps turning away from LORD. She's doing things her own way, placing her worth in everything but Him, losing sight of who she is meant to be. But he waits for her. He allures her. And then, he betroths her to him forever. 

He wrote those words for me to read, for each of us. He is faithful, he is patient. And he is waiting for each of us to take his hand, to lose our broken selves, and to gain him instead. And when we do that, when we take his mighty hand, we are not our own. We are his. And how beautifully does that change things. I begin to transform. Not by my own doing, but by his love. In seeking him and desiring him, how can I not start to be better? By letting Christ compel my life, how can I not accept who I am?

Oh golly. God's grace is a perfect conundrum. But the best part is, each time he reveals (and re-reveals) it to me, I catch a new glimpse of who He is.