H,
There is something simple
about being in God. It is easy to be open with a being that knows all about
your secret flaws. In theory, at least. We are wired to present the pictures
that avoid disappointment. We are usually trying to pull some wool over the
eyes of those we want to love us. We say they can’t handle it but the truth is
we cannot handle them thinking less of us. We need them to love the bright
spots and count it much more than the occasional slips.
The problem is that these
things are not occasional slips. They are perpetual states. The Christian worldview
says that we are not basically good with occasional lapses but basically sinful
with occasional lapses into the light. All we are doing is avoiding being bad
and doing enough good not to be ostracised by family, by lovers, by society and
by God. We are keeping the horrible thoughts inside and the horrible acts
within legal bounds. We are not being true to our real selves.
When you see this then you
see everything. What God is proposing by grace is not how to make us better
people but how to take us from being fatally flawed to being eternally
redeemed. There is a difference. This is why being curt with God is such a bad
idea. There is a mother within God that longs to nurture. There is a father in
God that longs to embrace all our flaws and unspool them. There is a friend in
God that longs to walk beside us. There is a lover in God that longs to be closer
than close has ever been.

We have to let that He and
Her and Us and Them all in. This is the only true way to change.