Tearing Down the Wall
Sometimes I really feel like I am learning to be a Christian all over again. In fact, I think that the most important advances in my relationship with Jesus have been made when I tear down things I thought I knew about Christianity and start from scratch. Each brick in the wall that once formed my conception of God’s expectations had a word written on it.
Perfect. Sanitary. Clean. Organized. Linear.
That wall is still being torn down, and a new one is not being constructed. Instead a path is being paved one brick at a time. It even looks like the same bricks are being used, but they have been flipped over. The opposite side of each one becomes visible as it is placed in the ground.
Messy. Imperfect. Screwy. Weird. Odd. Misfit.
The path is not a simple one. It goes this way and that, winding and turning. But I can assure you, there are enough of those bricks to pave the path wherever it takes me. The wall was high, stretching almost to God himself. It never quite made it, though, and the lower it gets, the more the path gets paved, the clearer I see that it never would have reached anyway.
I am not perfect. I am not sanitary. My soul is not clean, organized, or linear.
I curve. I bend. I twist and turn. I am a wild, frustrating, frustrated mess, and God meets me where I am. He will meet you wherever you are, too. Whenever you are ready to start taking that wall down he will be right there to help.
Originally written March 2, 2004, this is just as true today as I imagine it will be ten years from now.
