A Gritty God

Beautiful,

I am the only one you need, come lay all of you at my feet.
I'll gather you up and draw you close.
I don't want you to think that it is easy to be in love with me.
I don't want you to keep searching for a fairytale.
Its not going to happen.
Stop filling your time with busyness with buying and errand running and getting ready for nothing and eating out and spending and working to get money to spend it to just cycle through the day and not think about everything that is really hard and sort of sucks.

I have more in store for you.

Full life does it exists and it starts at the cross.
Come.


-Jesus


I'm so glad that Jesus is a gritty guy because life is really quite gritty at times. I'm really glad he didn't die on a huge gleaming cross that is really attractive because my heart is not gleaming and polished. And we need a cross that looks like our hearts. I'm glad that Jesus is not made real in really emotional church experiences only, but that he is more than our emotions and our institutions and our worship sessions and I'm glad he had dirt caked on his feet and that he cried and that he was mad at people sometimes and that he never tried to make himself into some fairy that would be fun to go along with because he is enough just as he is. His life speaks to me when I am hurt and broken and when I dont think things are very beautiful and when I'm a little bit sickened by myself. He seems to know that. I just really really like him. And he likes me. So much. And I guess that sounds really stupid but sometimes we forget about jesus genuinely liking us. Not even minding all those things that no one else likes or those things that no one else even knows about. Kind of like how your parents love you but they have to and they dont always like you. He always likes me. Thats a miracle.
In second peter, peter says were not just making Christ known by some cleverly devised argument we heard, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. But whats even better he says, and more sure, is the prophetic word which is like a lamp in a dark place because sometimes its really hard to see the majesty even if we know it. I just love that. He's like, this isnt something were trying to prove or change or make really attractive so you buy into. We simply know. We're telling you because its the best thing there is he. He is the best thing. He's the morning star rising in your heart. Thats beautiful. I can be kind of a beauty skeptic because I've experienced some surface deep beauty. And it often seems that pain goes much deeper than beauty. But Jesus was pain and was also beauty. The fullness of beauty. I cannot be skeptical when it comes to Christ. There is nothing surface deep about the cross. Its the opposite. Its far more than I will ever know. I cannot create expectations it would not exceed ten million fold.

I cant help but feel that if I lived by this my life would look different. The way I treated people would be very different.
Jesus, take me to the cross.