Leading up to Christmas, I ended up reading a lot of advent devotions by an artist named Scott Erickson that focused on the incarnation: God as a human, God with us. He is Creator and King, Alpha and Omega, King of Kings and Prince of Peace, and also was a human being. He was born as a helpless baby, bloody and gooey, and placed in a feeding trough. He had his diaper changed and, as an adult, probably had dirty, calloused feet. He cried at his friend’s funeral and prayed for God to take the cross from him, and he died naked, bleeding, and mocked. The theme I saw over and over again through these devotions was that the beauty of the incarnation is in Jesus’ full humanity. Being a human is messy and painful and vulnerable and Jesus’ life was all of those things. The Creator did not come to experience our hardships and say, “See guys? It’s really not that hard. Why can’t you do better?” He came and said, “Blessed are you who are poor in spirit. And you who cry. And when people hate you. Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, but don’t see it. Come to me if you’re tired and life is heavy. I see you. I know you. I will lay down my life for you. No one can snatch you out of my hand.” He had compassion on the crowds; He was friends with the “worst” people; He came to save you, not condemn you. He lived as a human to save us, and also to understand us—to empathize with us. (Matt. 5:3-6/Luke 6:20-22; Matt. 11:28; John 10:11, 14, 28; Matt. 14:14; Matt. 9:10; John 3:17, Hebrews 4:15)
So why am I so often tricked into thinking God looks at me and says, “You’re failing. Pull yourself together. Why aren’t you smarter or stronger by now? Why aren’t you more trusting or peaceful or [fill in the blank]?” It’s hard to look in the mirror and think, “I am just as loved when I mess it all up as I am when I do it right. It’s okay that I can’t do it all.” Why is it so easy to believe I’m a failure, disappointment, unlovable? I don’t want to think this way, and I don’t think God created me to think this way. So I find myself in an uncomfortable spot between where I am and where I want to be. And maybe this hurt is moving me towards there, breaking down the unwanted habits and thoughts and parts of me that formed out of fear or pride. Maybe it’s not that He is ignoring my pain, but that He wants the same thing for me that I want for myself.
Please hear me say: this isn’t a fun feeling. Nobody likes to hurt. None of us desire loss or grief or suffering. I’m not trying to dismiss deep aches with a well-meaning but invalidating, “God is good!” I think this will be a long, continual process, but one that I want to participate in, so it helps me to look towards the one who made me and ask him to at least use the hurt if he won’t take it away. I hope that I see more of who He is and more of who I am because of Him. I hope I can learn how to be okay with being weak.