Honesty with Father

I have met with many people who struggle to admit that they are angry with God, because we are not supposed to be angry with God.  It was Teresa of Avila who once said to God, "If this is how you treat your friends, no wander you have so many enemies."  She was a person who knew God deeply and saw many miracles.  Jesus addressed this issue when He spoke to the Pharisees about how they prayed and that they used flowery language to impress.  Jesus highlighted in a story that the man who beat his chest and felt so unworthy to receive was the one who would receive.

Is Father really impressed by our spiritual language, our prayers that we pray because we believe we are showing God's power, or our hiding our true condition of our soul's temper tantrums.  I believe any time you are in a church culture, a religious mindset is a temptation.  This is not real intimacy or relationship with God but something that appears like you are spiritual but really has no substance.  It was refreshing to sit down with friends, ministry partners, and peers to talk about rest.  Even though the Father has given me wisdom and insight in this area, I have more disappointments, frustrations, and barriers than success.  The refreshing was being able to be honest with Father about those but also with others.

Self-pity and the victim attitude are dangerous territory to inhabit but to steer so clear of them that we live in the land of "fine" with flowery Christian ease is equally as lethal to true relationship with Father.  Is God really scared of your secret frustration with Him, your disappointment, your fears that He won't come through, your questions about why things happen in your life, or even the pain of His seeming absence.  Do we have an overly sensitive, touching, insecure, and weak Father?  Jesus is the exact representation of Father, Jesus entered into the smelly, dirty, gritty, sinful, raw, and often contentious reality of an occupied Israel with all the Roman brutality.  I never see Jesus shocked by people's sin, overwhelmed by the demons they carry, deterred by the their lack of knowing who He was, or even offended by their lack of respect for Him.

I believe God loves when we get honest and real without making excuses to stay stuck or looking for God to validate our self-pity.  I believe true spirituality must have an element of rawness.  Jesus shows up in the middle of people's pain, unbelief, sin, anger, distaste for religion, and even their outright rejection of God.  We have been given permission through Jesus Christ to get real.  Couldn't God have made all those people bow down and worship Jesus.  Absolutely, but then love does not exist because real love requires the freedom to choose.  The freedom to choose means the freedom to reject.  Jesus walked right into our rejection of Him with a bold love that was unstoppable and captivating.

In Father's Love,
Bret