So I’m in therapy. That’s nothing new. I’ve been in therapy on and off for much of my adult life. I’m really grateful for it. Sometimes it’s not a good fit, but when it is a good fit, it’s a game changer. I have a new guy now and the jury’s still out. I’ll keep you posted.
About ten years ago I was working with this therapist and it was a very good fit. She and I had both grown up in similar religious, geographical, and cultural contexts, and we both had come to similar places in our relationships with those things. Which is to say I felt heard and understood, and she was able to speak a language to me that didn’t need a lot of translation. I learned a lot from her about life and about myself. But the thing she taught me that may stick with me the most – at least on a conscious level – was something about God.
I was speaking with her about the pursuit of perfection: My desire to get everything right, to be the right kind of person, and specifically my belief that I needed to make all the right choices in order to be that right kind of person. I wanted to get it right, you know. And I wanted to get it right for God. It seemed like the least I could do. But I put a lot of pressure on myself to do that: To get it right for God, to make the right choices for God. To be the person God thought I could be. I was not able to see what a burden I was placing on myself in all this. But my therapist saw it.
And she gave me this image. She even drew it for me, and I’m sorry that I cannot draw it for you, but I’ll do my best with words. First she drew a bunch of blocks in a pile, and she said imagine these blocks are all you – all your stuff, your life, your decisions. Then she drew the blocks stacked up in a tower – like Jenga or Babel. And she said, maybe you tend to think it’s your job to stack these up just perfectly so you can reach God. Like you’ve gotta stack them just right or you won’t get there. I didn’t like how true that felt.
Then she went back to the sketch of the pile of blocks. We looked at it again, and then she drew a bunch of arrows from above coming down towards the blocks right there in their pile. And she said, “What if God meets you in each of these moments, decisions, whatever they are and whenever and however they come about?” What do you mean I asked. She went on, “Well, what if God is going to show up in your life and meet you regardless of how right you get it? What if your job isn’t to try to build the perfect life to get to God? What if your job is to get good at seeing how God is finding you in this messy pile of your life and decisions?”
To this day she has no idea how much she changed my understanding of God.
Do you remember the story of the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis? A bunch of people come together and decide to build a tower so high it reaches God – and God shows up and confuses their language so they can’t understand each other and they never finish the tower. This story has been interpreted a lot of different ways, which makes sense. It should be. But one thing I believe is that the premise of the builders was way off. They thought the point was to reach God on their own power. It turns out that’s not a thing. We cannot reach God on our own power.
And for the record I don’t think that’s our fault. Contrary to what a lot of Christians have taught, I don’t believe it’s our sinfulness that keeps us from reaching God on our own power – it’s God’s very nature that doesn’t allow it. God is God and we are not. God is an eternal mystery. God embodies love and power and wisdom and righteousness and mercy and justice and knowledge and goodness in ways that far surpass anything we can grasp – not because we’re sinful, but because you can’t grasp infinity.
You are likely familiar with the 23rd Psalm – The Lord is my shepherd, etc. The last line of that famous Psalm is usually translated something like, “surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever.” For the longest time I did not think anything of it. It just sounded nice, and reminded me that the plan was for me to be with God at the end of all things. Then at some point I began to wonder. What is this language about goodness and mercy following me? Does that mean that I will be such a good person that goodness and mercy will follow in my wake wherever I go? Because that’s how it sounds, and that doesn’t seem right.
It doesn’t seem right because it isn’t. The Hebrew word that we often translate as “follow” means “pursue”. As in “surely goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life.” That simple shift changes our whole understanding of that text – and continues to reshape the way I understand my relationship with God. Because two of the major attributes of God as described in our Scriptures are goodness and mercy. In this Psalm, goodness and mercy they are not just abstract virtues or hopeful ideals: They are personified in God. God will pursue me all my life. Which of course fits much better with the opening of the Psalm in which God is my shepherd. Wherever I go, my shepherd will pursue me to bring me back into the fold. This is such an essential and powerful point, that Jesus used it in his own teaching to illustrate the love of God.
The love of God. The faithfulness of God. The grace of God. All of these embodied in God’s pursuit of me. Not just of me, of you. Of us. God is in pursuit. God is seeking us. God is finding us where we are.
Isn’t this pursuit the heart of the Christmas story? Immanuel means God with us, and that’s the whole thing: God shows up. Jesus is the incarnation of God’s holy pursuit. Wherever you go and whatever you do, whatever decisions you make, God’s love is pursuing you, seeking you out, finding you where you are, loving you as you are.
“Have you found Jesus?” is such a ridiculous question. Jesus isn’t hiding. He’s pursuing you with goodness and mercy, with faithfulness and love. With healing and reconciliation.
Think for a moment about how you frame your relationship with God. Isn’t it always with the emphasis on what you should be doing differently, doing better, doing more correctly? And I get it – you’re a mess. You’re imperfect. There are things you could be doing better. Seriously: Get it together, will you?
I cannot say this enough: God expects you to be a mess. God did not enter into this relationship in ignorance. The idea that your natural condition as a person – your basic humanity – is inherently abhorrent to God, is disappointing to God, is shameful to God – well, that’s just bad theology. I don’t care how many Christians have said it in the past or present. I don’t care how hard it is for you to believe that God loves you as you are: God loves you as you are. It’s the most true thing about you.
Getting it all right is not your primary purpose. Your life with God is not meant to be a wobbly Jenga tower – what an exhausting way to live. It’s Christmas. God is not elsewhere. God is right here in the pile of blocks that make up your life because God’s nature is to love you wildly, extravagantly. Whoever you are, wherever you are, however you are, the goodness and mercy of God are in pursuit: They are seeking you out even now. And like the man says, “the one who seeks finds.” God is not elsewhere.
