Sometimes church gets on my nerves.  I think we err on the side of making everything so neat, clean and polite that we miss talking about the stuff at a person’s core because the stuff we tote around that really affects us is never, ever neat, clean or polite.  It’s a gigantic mess that we pretend to have cleaned up when really we’ve just shoved it under the bed.    

I wish there was a small group at my church called Messed Up where I could go and just dump my baggage.  I mean really dump the stuff that only God knows about.  The problem with feeling like I can’t just spew all over the place is that I start to feel like I have to pretend to be less than I am and that’s too bad because some of the more interesting things about me are my flaws.  You take those out of the mix and you still get me but it’s a whitewashed version of me and I think there’s an inherent lie in being less than you are.  Add liar to my list of baggage that requires a fresh coat of whitewash.

There’s so much risk involved in showing your inner baggage to others but if we don’t do it we lead a very surface type of Christianity.  This is bad for us on a personal level because we fail to grow when we fail to face our problems but it’s also bad when non-Christians see us do it.  They see straight through our phoniness.  By pretending we’ve got it together we’re actually turning people away from a relationship with God.  We look like exactly what we are: hypocrites. 

Have you ever noticed how the Bible is full of stories about people who would probably be kicked out of church?  Moses was a murderer.  Mary was a prostitute.  Noah got naked and passed out drunk.  Why do we assume that we have to market perfection when our founders and leaders were spectacularly flawed? 

Whatever our beliefs, we are broken and flawed people.  In that sense, there is no difference between Christian and non-Christian.  We have far more similarities than we might realize.  By not admitting that as Christians we still have weaknesses aren’t we really just selling lies?  I’m afraid we may suggest to the world that what we have is unattainable if we’re not totally honest about who we are. 

I never want to sell God as an unachievable to-do list when I know He is a person and He is available to everyone.  I know that is true because of my flaws.  I was born flawed and He loved me.  I became a Christian in spite of my flaws and He loved me.  I am a Christian, I am flawed still and He loves me.  God’s love is consistent. 

When we’re honest about who we are and where we are, others can see God working through our flaws.  If we hide our struggles away, we’re hiding the amazing and spectacular things that God does to reunite us to Him.  To show God to the world, we have to be vulnerable, not perfect.