Jesus won....I mean, unless you ____ or forget to ____

I have been thinking about how we see ourselves and how scared we are. I used the analogy with a friend this week that recurs in my mind of God being a stressed out office worker in heaven, that when we screw up, He throws papers all over his office and lets out a scream of frustration because we messed up His plan. 

I imagine it's almost insulting to God to think that we have the power in ourselves to screw up His plan with our sins. In this sense, we think much too highly of ourselves. The success and failure of God's plan doesn't rest on whether or not you say a swear word, it doesn't really rest on us at all. 

We are just so scared. We can't misstep because there's an imaginary Shotgun of Justice pointed at our heads at all times. It just shuts us down, this fear. We become so afraid of even taking a step, because we don't want to get it wrong, that we don't take any steps at all. We lock the doors and hug things that our consciences are okay with. I'm becoming increasingly sure that this isn't how God wants us to function at all. 

The reality is that we were given a life, and I think it's a fair assumption to think that we're actually supposed to live that life. We have to actually take steps, breathe, and do things, even if we will screw things up.

It's true that we as humans sometimes have to learn things 100 times to really learn it. And the idea that God actually entered my life when I was screwed up, knowing all the depths of my corrupt heart, my thoughts, my actions, intentions, everything, is something I can't seem to swallow. God knows full well where I am at, and where I've been. His intentions aren't to wait for us to trip up so He can put us in jail. He loves us and wants to change us. We have a major issue trusting Him.

What I've found is that for change to happen, you have to actually be vulnerable and screw up. Pretending like we aren't screwed up is kind of what the Pharisees did - we're screwed up and God isn't really asking us to act differently. He's more asking us to acknowledge that and let Him change us.

This concept that God works through us despite how messed up we are, and His salvation isn't teetering on the edge of a cliff always about to fall off forever, is something worth learning 100 times.

If you think about it, this is the core of the fear in Christian minds. That if we screw up, God won't love us any more. We'll lose the life He gave us and be doomed. As we become more confident in Him, in our relationship with Him, in His salvation for us, in His heart and intentions for us, the more at ease we are each day. We can live today, and be humans and have emotional responses, desire things, say things, etc. And not if  but when we screw up, He'll still be there and love us. 

If the bible is to be believed, the fear of sin that I described does nothing but hold us back personally. God's already won, yet this fear likes to convince us that it's still on our shoulders to bring it home. Take peace in the fact that it's not actually up to you, God's got it covered.