No Self Clean-up Required

Here is a post from my wife’s blog givingitalltochrist.org that I would like to share with you.

The Lord has been trying to show or tell me that He loves us in our mess. He does not want us to put out traffic cones and caution tape to separate ourselves from Him until we “fix” or clean ourselves up. He loves us in our mess and desires to love us out of our mess. We are not perfect beings, but He is! It is through His righteousness that we are perfected and made righteous. Without allowing His love to come to us in our mess, we will never get out of it. To get ourselves out of the pit is impossible, we must wait on the Lord to provide the way out and then trust and act on it.

Sometimes it is the little messes that cause the biggest problems. We often think we can fix the “little” issues, but the truth is that without Christ’s help, we can do nothing to fix ourselves. Try to imagine digging your way out of a deep well; it cannot be done. The more you dig, the deeper you get. But if you don’t panic in the situation and wait for the enemy to try and bury you by throwing dirt in your face…You can slowly step up onto each pile of dirt he throws, until you reach the top – overcoming everything the enemy [Devil] has thrown at you. The Devil thought he was getting rid of you and burying you for good, but in fact the Lord was using him to provide a way out of the hole you got yourself into.

Why do we try to fix ourselves without asking for the Lord’s help? Yes, the easy answer is that we are in a form of pride, but I also think that sometimes it comes out of our imperfect love for Christ. We are imperfect without Him and therefore love imperfectly without the Spirit’s help, yet we so desire to be perfect for Him. I know there are times I would much rather try to “fix” something myself, than taking the chance on disappointing someone I love by allowing them to see me in my mess. Although I have never been able to fix any issue myself, I always somehow convince myself that “this time” it will be different and I can fix it. I try to “fix” the problem on my own, because I do not want anyone to be disappointed or hurt because of my mistake. I think at least some of the time it is the same situation in our relationship with the Lord. We do not want to disappoint Him with our imperfectness, so we try to perfect ourselves so we do not hurt Him.

We are not perfect beings, so we will continue to make messes. But He is perfect in His love for us and is able to “love us out of our mess.” The bible talks about how clean the stall is without an ox (no messes), but much work gets done with the ox. (Proverbs 14:4) The Lord knows we will make mistakes and sometimes even make HUGE messes He will have to help us out of, yet He still chooses to work THROUGH us rather than around us. He knows our potential [in Him] and the wonders we could do in His name if we keep our hearts right and surrendered, so he keeps us in His ‘stall’ to be used as we allow Him to use us. This is a strange concept for our human minds to comprehend, that a perfect God would desire to use an imperfect person to change the world…But it is true, He loves you and desires to use you. Keep your heart right with Him and surrender to Him daily, and He will amaze you at the messes He can love you out of and the things he will do through you.