Friday, December 20, 2013

God of the humble

On Sunday we sang a very familiar song (to me at least) to close our service.  It goes like this:

Oh kneel me down again here at your feet
Show me how much you love humility
Oh Spirit be the star that leads me to
The humble heart of love I see in you

You are the God of the broken
Friend of the weak
You wash the feet of the weary
Refresh the ones in need
I want to be like you Jesus
To have this heart in me
You are the God of the humble
You are the humble king

(Here's a recording of the song.)

Now, every other time I've sang this song I've thought of it as a statement of God's nearness, of His willingness to come down from the glory of heaven and live here on this Earth.  To dive into our messes and walk through life with us.  But on Sunday it was different.  All of a sudden, deep in my soul, I realized that what the song was also saying...perhaps the most important thing it was saying...was that Jesus is the God of broken people.  Tired people.  Not the ruler over the wealthy, the powerful or those who have it all together. It was as if in an instant the Holy Spirit whispered to my soul, "Stop striving.  Stop trying so hard to be perfect. It's ok to be broken."

Today one of my favorite bloggers, Addie Zierman, posted this: "And the most important thing that I learned about prayer this year is that I’m meant to come weary. To come distracted and messy and imperfect. I learned that it’s not failure to offer my piecemeal prayers up, punctuated by life’s interruptions. It’s faithfulness."

(Check out the whole post here.  And while you're there read everything she's every written because it's amazing.)

I'm taking it all as a reminder that brokenness and messiness and imperfection are not only acceptable to God, they are embraced.  I'm praying for the grace to remember this and to walk it out every day.  Join me?