I Dare You to Trust

I have been a fan of Rich Mullins' music for about as long as I can remember listening to music.  His album A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band forever changed my idea of what music and lyric writing meant.  I still remember the day, and where I was on my college campus, when I heard that Rich had passed away in a tragic car accident.  What Rich inspired me to do was to try and understand God and His love for me.  Since Rich's passing, I have watched just about every documentary and tribute that was produced about him and his life.  Most recently, there was a film called Ragamuffin that was made about his life.  It was a film that David Leo Schultz (who I hope I get to meet and have a conversation with someday) directed that beautifully depicts the struggles Rich faced throughout his life.  The things that I admired most about Rich were his humanity, his unashamed realness, and his passion for knowing God.  He didn't pretend to be something he wasn't, and he wasn't afraid to be broken in front of others.  

I think we all can learn a lesson here.  In order to be honest before others, you have to be honest with yourself.  In order to be honest with yourself, you have to be honest before God.  In order to be honest before God, you must be broken.  Brokenness is an essential part of honesty, in my opinion.  Today, I think our churches are overrun with people who have selective brokenness or selective surrender.  That is not what God requires.  What does God require?  The death of self.  Every day, another piece of me has to die.  Every day, another piece of my pride, my judgmental spirit, my anger, and anything else that does not reflect my Savior has to be killed.  There will never come a day that God won't require that of me.  The question is...do I have the guts to surrender?

For years, I had this very poor, distorted view of God.  I thought He was a God of rules, regulations, criticisms, critiques, and judgment.  When I view God that way, I take away almost everything that Jesus did on the cross.  What is at the core of who God is?   Love and compassion.  While watching Ragamuffin, I heard this quote by Brennan Manning (another man whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration for):

(It's rather long, but very worth it!)

On judgment day, I believe God will ask one question, and only one question…did you believe that I loved you, that I desired you, that I waited for you day after day, that I longed to hear the sound of your voice?  The real believers will respond and say, I believed in your love, and I tried to shape my life as a response to it.  But many of us who are so faithful to our ministry to our practice, to our church-going are going to answer, "Well frankly, no sir, I never really believed it.  There is the real difference between the real believers and the nominal Christians who abound in our churches across the land.  No one can measure like a believer the depth and the intensity of God's love, but then again no one can measure like a believer the effectiveness of our gloom, our pessimism, our low self-esteem, our self-hatred, and despair that block God's way to us.  Do you see now why it's so important to lay hold to this basic truth of our faith, because you are only going to be as big as your own concept of God.  We make God in our own image, and He winds up as being as fussy,  and rude, and narrow-minded, and judgmental, and legalistic, and unloving, and unforgiving as we are.  I've been in churches from Bangor, Maine, Miami, Seattle, San Diego, and St. Louis, and, honest the God, of so many Christians I meet is too small for me.  Because He is not the God of the Word, He is not the God who is revealed in and by Jesus Christ who, at this moment, comes to your seat and says, "I have a word for you.  I know your whole life story.  I know every skeleton in your closet.  I know every moment of sin and shame, dishonesty and degraded love that darkened your past.  Right now, I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship, and my word to you is this…I dare you to trust that I love you, just as you are, not as you should be, because none of us are as we should be."  

When I heard that, God wrecked me.  For so many years, I was the person who had to say, "well frankly, no sir, I never really believed it."  Now, I am beginning to dare to believe that God loves me just as I am.  God's love for me is not performance based.  It is based solely on the fact that HE IS LOVE!  God loves you just the way you are, too!  It's not because you go to church every week, or go to a bible study, or tithe, or sing, or play in the praise band, or serve in some other capacity.  All of those things are great, but His love for you is based on the fact that God IS love...and He is crazy about you.  Does God know that I am going to fail Him again and again?  Absolutely.  Doesn't that change His love for me?  Absolutely not!  What would happen if we all grasped this idea?  Man, you want to talk about revival.  If we can view ourselves in the light of God's love, imagine how we would view others!  Everything would change.  How we led our families, our jobs, our communities, our churches, our nation....  Everything.  Would.  Change.  What about you?  Do you dare trust that God loves you that way?  I dare you to trust that God loves you, just as you are, not as you should be, because none of us are as we should be.

Be God's