If you have ever interacted with me, even just once or twice, you probably know that I am an extremely sarcastic, blunt, to-the-point sort of person. While some people think it's funny, it tends to gets me in trouble. On those occasions, something I often struggle with is just internally blaming it on my personality. I have to constantly remind myself that there is a fine line between character and personality.
My personality (in this context) is sarcastic, blunt, and to-the-point. But when these attributes compromise my character (rather, the kind of character God wants me to have), it turns into something more along the lines of ridiculing, rude, and offensive. That becomes the fine line. When I cross that, I have gone too far.
I think things like sarcasm are similar to anger. God gets angry, but it's a righteous anger. We often tend to pull the "well..God does it" excuse in an attempt to justify our actions. It's all a load BS and we know it. So why do we do it? We are only making ourselves look like fools.
Frankly, it is because we are fools. And arrogant ones at that. Well, I am at least.
Whenever I screw up, which is a lot, I always get really frustrated with myself. Sometimes, it is not even because I have acted in opposition to God's will for my life. Sometimes, it is just because I have put a dent in my ego. So I begin trying to justify my actions with "well, God gets angry" or "it's just not my day" or "I'm just a sarcastic person" (shrugs shoulders). But then God comes down, kicks me in the butt, and reminds me that if I hadn't had an ego in the first place, there wouldn't be anything there to dent.
That's something I really like about God. He's really sarcastic and blunt. And I relate to that. Maybe He is only that way with sarcastic people, but more often than not, when He's trying to get my attention, He seems to like to do it the same way I do.
About a week ago, I had a bit of a frustrating afternoon and I was pretty grumpy because of it. Was I frustrated because I saw someone being treated unjustly? No. I was frustrated because I was asked to go out of my way to do a favor for someone. Um, I had an agenda for the day. My schedule was full. Who are they to throw their responsibilities on me? I am always doing crap for them. But I did it anyways. Very grumpily.
When a bit of a miscommunication took place that resulted in a lot of wasted time and gas, I just grew more irritable...not to mention my baby brother puked in my car. Awesome. So after I grumpily tweeted about the event, I drove home to finally put my own agenda into action. But when I stepped out of the car, I realized how beautiful it was outside; everyone was probably outside enjoying their day and they probably didn't care if mine wasn't going my way. Well that's just great, I've already thrown my twitter-fit and made a fool of myself. Frustrated, I grabbed my homework and decided to do it outside in the pretty weather.
About thirty minutes in, it started to rain. Funny, God. Real funny. I got the point when I stepped out of my car and felt the beautiful weather. "Did you?" He replied, "didn't seem like it. Looked more like you were trying to dump your selfishness onto others by claiming you're swamped with homework. Looked more like you were realizing you're being whiny and then were embarrassed of it. Looked more like you took a hit to your self-absorbed ego and tried to cover it by noticing the weather. So..(chuckles to Himself) enjoy My weather now, lady."
Well dang.
Just that little bit of His sarcasm from that little bit of rain turned my embarrassment of looking stupid into embarrassment of misrepresenting Christ. Now I am arrogant and hypocritical. I was humbled, to say the least. And honestly, mildly depressed. That is not who I want to be. Those two characteristics are among my biggest pet peeves. And now I am exuding both. For someone who follows Christ, I do not do it very well at all.
I mean, there are a ton of things about myself that I don't like. I am loud, I get angry too easily, I struggle with bitterness, I am not funny, I am rude, I am too easily distracted, I am awkward, I am impatient, I do not feel very smart, I do not feel very talented, etc. But being arrogant and hypocritical are two things that I REALLY do not want to be. So when I came to the realization that I have been both, I got really mad at myself. I do not want to be that type of person. I do not want to portray Christ that way.
Naturally, as all of this is running through my mind, the enemy took no time to jump in and egg those thoughts on.. sneakily making his own edits to the thought process along the way. He had to make sure he got in there and gave his two cents on the matter before I came to the simple conclusion that regardless of the fact that I make mistakes, God will pick me up, tell me He loves me, and give me determination to be a better person.
But the enemy doesn't like conclusions like that. In fact, he doesn't like conclusions at all. Just confusion and feelings of worthlessness. Thus, the self-deprication began to set in.
(sighs) will I ever learn?
All that following week, I kept running into obstacles that continued to discourage me. Everywhere I went, I was continually made aware of all my insecurities. It seemed almost like a cruel joke. As if someone knew I had been struggling the past few months with anger and bitterness and worthlessness and that it was topped with the realization that I've been acting exactly like the type of person I can not stand to be around. As if they purposely set up situations to make light of those facts. I am fairly sure that someone was the enemy and I am fairly sure he was having loads of fun doing so.
Despite God's continual attempts at reminding me that my worth is not placed in opinions of the world, or in the things that I have done, I kept getting angrier and angrier at myself. I kept thinking "this is different, those scenarios don't exactly apply." They did, but the enemy kept trying to make me feel like my case was hopeless, that I was hopeless. I kept thinking that, until yesterday, when God decided He had enough of my stubbornness. This time, though, He was less blunt and just more to-the-point.
After being very loudly informed of a numerous amount of my failures, I decided to get my mind off of things by reading Don Miller's "Blue Like Jazz," a book I bought on Sunday.
Aside from Francine Rivers' "Redeeming Love," this is the only book that has ever made me cry.
Instead of getting my mind off of my frustration, the book just brought it back up. God needed my attention. He needed to humble me still. I was still being arrogant. In Don's words, I was "too proud to accept God's grace." He wrote:
"If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness, He changes our character with the passion of His love."
Bam. Humbled, again. Less blunt, but equally to-the-point. I could literally feel the change in my heart starting to take place. Later that evening, I picked up the book again. Apparently, God wasn't finished talking to me. I think He just wanted to reiterate the fact that He loves me. This time, I read:
"The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her...I lay there under the stars and thought of what a great responsibility it is to be human. I am human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved."
This hit home. I realized that my problem was that I kept trying to earn His grace. In that self-loathing attitude that I kept carrying around, I was putting myself above His grace. I was telling God that He is incapable of forgiving me and loving me. God spoke through Miller and He made His point..and I was completely humbled. Not the self-depricating humiliation I allowed myself to feel the first time, but the absolutely wonderful, confusing, humbling feeling of being loved beyond comprehension without doing a single thing to earn it. I was so humbled, so thankful that I cried myself to sleep.
I am a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I did. I have always had an issue with letting myself cry because it makes me feel weak and vulnerable. I don't like letting my guard down. I don't like exposing my feelings because I am afraid they will be used against me. But God was working in my heart, and I want people to know. God made Himself so real to me, and I want people to know. It was one of those experiences you can not just keep to yourself, even if it makes you a little uncomfortable admitting to it. To someone reading this, it may not seem like that big of a deal. But to me, it's huge. He is real, and He cares deeply about what goes on in my heart.
I know none of this is very structured; I know none of my thoughts are very well organized; I know this is a novel of a blog-post, but it's something I felt compelled to share. For a while I felt extremely discouraged, and part of that is my constant struggle with depression, but God was using it to set the stage to remind me of who He is, and who He wants me to be. Granted, it was just a bit of rain and just a little book, but He has a tendency to use little things for a bigger purpose.
I want to be one of those little things.
