Messy Spirituality

Ever since I was in High School and I began to really think about my walk with Christ, I have always thought about the following: I don't pray enough; I don't read my Bible enough; I don't share my faith enough; I don't love God enough; I'm not committed enough; I'm not spiritual enough. Those thoughts have been in my head for the longest time. I have always thought that if I am an authentic Christian, then I have to be perfect, as Christ was perfect, but I always come up short, way short. I have associated so much guilt with all of those thoughts, because I feel like I really try to be what God wants me to be. I spend so much life worried about what I don't do instead of what I have done, focused on my imperfections instead of God's fondness for the imperfect.

I have just started reading a book called Messy Spirituality and it has opened my eyes in a whole new way. The book is by Michael Yaconelli. He basis of the book on this question: What if genuine faith begins with admitting we will never have our act completely together? He suggests that imperfection, unfinishedness, and messiness are, in fact, the earmarks of true Christianity; that real Christianity is messy, erratic, lopsided, and maybe liberating.

The book gets into how messed up most of our Biblical heroes were. They were murderers, adulterers, prostitutes, criminals, and lepers. He talked about Noah and his faith and willingness to listen to God to build the Ark. He then mentions that when the waters receded that Noah proceeded to go get drunk and naked. I never really thought about Noah like that, nor had I heard the story told like that. I have to realize that its okay to screw up, and not feel so guilty. I just need to be able to hear Jesus when I screw up, when he says "That's not quite what I am looking for, let's try again". He doesn't say, "That's not quite what I am looking for, get away from me". I guess being so messed up is not such a horrible thing to be as a "Christian".