UNTAGELING THE MESS
God of all grace
My name is Mike, I’m an alcoholic. Through the grace of God, I have been sober for many years and yet I find that I am still a rather sticky mess. I find that constantly I’m fighting to clean up the “mess”- and put away my “crazy”. Seeing a person who is completely a “mess” is one of the hardest things that you will ever witness and even harder if you, like me, feel like a “mess” and/or have been a mess. We sit back and watch our tragedy of “MESS” unfold as if we were watching a movie.
After all these years of trying to follow Jesus and truly trying to be more like Him, I keep losing Him. Daily life consists of constantly misplacing or right-out losing things. Storing things away in a “secure” place that I am sure to remember. NOT.
Crying out “what a mess” sometimes daily. The truth is, that too much of the time I’m too busy for Him. The fog of this world makes it difficult to see him. I blame my past for my present messy life and fixate on insignificant details of the inconsequential. Since my first encounter with Jesus, I truly have desired to be a Godly person, desperately wanting to know Jesus more. Desperate to be clean and presentable. You know a three-piece suit kind of fellow also with a grand briefcase. “Looking good- appearing a success” Appearing to be “perfect”, after all, I am a believer who is to be Christ-like. At times I was ready to grow my hair long and grow a beard if that’s what it would take to deal with the Mess. My mess.
The reality is I was messy back then and I’m still a mess (yes, emotionally too). One minute I’m waving palms and crying hosanna, singing the latest praise song and in the next minute I find myself like Peter denying and hiding. It seems the best that I can do is stumbling, and bumbling, having an awkward kind of walk with him. My walk many times resembles Larry, Curly, and Moe.
What encourages me is the common, ordinary, broken, and messy people that we see in Scripture. Realizing that to admit that I’m a mess sounds well; un-spiritual, un-Christ-like. (especially for a Pastor) Maybe my truth is scandalous, my condition of not having it all together absolutely all the time.
Being in Christ is not a formula. It’s not about competency, it’s not about perfection, it is about connection-connection of the heart.
The way a Christ-like life grows as we come to accept the reality of our brokenness, flaws, busyness, mistakes, success (success can be dangerous), and failures and we begin to earnestly seek God. Not programs, not “Church”, not books, but seek a personal heart-to-heart relationship, seeking the only one who can untangle the mess that we’ve created. Thank God, the Bible overflows with messy people.
In John chapter 5 we see a man being asked the most difficult question “Do you want to get well?” Let me rephrase that: “Do you want your messy sticky life untangled?” In that passage the man immediately does what we all do, he begins to blame and explain away his mess. He is then instructed to pick up his mess and go.
Feeling helpless to stop it, feeling like you haven’t done enough? You haven’t, but Jesus has. He invites us to come and follow Him. Do you want your messy sticky life untangled? Pick up your mess and come to Jesus!
“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”
- 1 Peter 5:10
The Serenity prayer
God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change...
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life, And supremely happy with Him forever in
the next. Amen.
Until next time,
I am Pastor Mike
2 Cor. 5:17
