One of the biggest lessons that I’m learning on The World Race is about GRACE.
Understanding that God loves me despite my imperfections, and that the entire point of the gospel is that I will always mess up, and I’ll never be perfect, and I will never have it all together. And that’s okay.
To be honest, I’ve been wanting to post this blog for a while, but I’ve realized I tend to write about things God has taught me, rather than IS teaching me. This is something I will probably always struggle with, and if I wait until I have it all together to talk about it, I’ll end up never talking about it. So here we go.
I am not perfect.
I know, to the rest of the world, that’s a big fat “duh.” But I’ve realized I have one expectation for myself: perfection.
The World Race warned us at training camp to rid ourselves of our expectations. At that time, I thought that only meant expecting to have an amazing time all year, expecting to jump off every waterfall in existence, etc. I’ve realized I have to drop these unrealistic expectations I have for myself. The expectations of perfection, having it all together – all the time, never messing up, never doubting God, serving God until I’m blue in the face, and performing, performing, performing for God. And consequently, always messing up.
Because I am a human being. Stephanie, you are a human being. And you, you are a human being too. And the entire point of Christianity is that you will mess up, and God is gracious.
And it’s HIS righteousness, NOT our own. It’s what HE did, not what WE do or don’t do, that saves us.
We hear it all the time. For it is by grace you have been saved… not by works, so that no man can boast. So great, we hear it once, raise our hand. Get that “grace” thing at the moment of salvation.
But as soon as we’re saved, we base everything off of our works. God will only speak to us if we’re holy. God will only bless us if we’re righteous. God will only take care of us if He can be proud of us.
What? Where is THAT in the gospel?
Granted, yes, the Bible calls us to holiness. We are to imitate Christ. I am not preaching free grace: DO NOT go purposefully sin because hey, God is gracious. Paul says we should by no means sin so that grace may abound.
But he also says that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Last time I checked, I was part of all creation. So when I’m in Christ, I can’t separate myself from God’s love. I can’t. But I live like I can.
And I live like I can gain God’s favor by performing well.
My story is not one of a rebellious phase, with sex, drugs, and drunkenness, where I have this big turn around and am in awe of the grace of God. My story is one of the “good girl.” My story is the one where the girl that knew all the sunday school answers became a pastor’s daughter, went to Christian high school, went on a zillion mission trips, earned a degree in Bible, and am now a full time missionary. I’ve gotten almost all A’s and B’s, never kissed a boy, and… blah, blah, blah. On the outside, I’m the poster child for a “good girl.” And trust me, I don’t say this to my credit. I am absolutely thankful that God has given me my story. He has taken care of me, watched out for me, allowed my affection for Him to result in actions of serving Him, etc.
But to be honest, a lot of my life has been performing, for God and others, rather than just living as a daughter of God.
I think a lot of this comes from being a pastors daughter. Most of you reading this are either part of my church or know my dad. Please understand that I’m not saying anyone has done anything wrong at all. You’re all the best, especially you, Dad. I’m just saying it’s kind of the nature of the beast – the natural consequence of the position. Everyone’s looking at you. You’re on stage a lot. You have to be dressed up just enough to show you love church, but not too much that you show you love money. You have to be modest enough to be a good Christian girl, but not dress Amish. You have to know all the answers in Sunday School, but not talk too much and give others a chance to answer. You have to go to the local Christian high school, be involved in leadership, go on every short term missions trip, then graduate with honors in Bible college…. you get the picture.
And it’s exhausting.
No one told me I had to do any of those things. But I believed I did. And to be honest, I loved high school. I love missions. I loved college. And I love The World Race. But really deeply set, I thought I had to be the perfect Christian girl. And I did all those things. Well.
But here’s the part I don’t do well.
I don’t have it all together.
I don’t let the theology I know go from my head to my heart.
I freak out about the future.
I don’t always trust God has my best in mind.
I try to run my own life.
But I can’t mention that I’m really scared God won’t come through for me, because then I’m a bad graduate of Bible college.
I should know better.
And then it’s shame, shame, shame, SHAME.
I’ve realized I live in a lot of shame that I sometimes feel like God’s not enough. That I doubt. That I get scared. Bad daughter of God. Bad girl.
Oh, the endless web this spins. God’s grace was only for the day you got saved, and then you have to prove you’re being sanctified, and everyone else has to notice the Jesus in you, and then they think you’re great, but when they really get to know you they see your faults, and then are disappointed in you, so you perform even more, but you let them see your faults even less, people pleasing, and performing for God. But even if you hide your faults from others, you become your own worst critic, and you don’t believe anyone could ever love you in your mess, especially God.
Oh my word, Stephanie. You can really be a wreck sometimes.
But. I’m learning that’s okay. God loves me in my mess.
Yes, He calls me to righteous living and holiness. He calls me to sanctification. He calls me to do good works which He has prepared in advance for me to do. But when He looks at me, He doesn’t see my Bible degree, nor does He see my journal entry where I got a little mad at Him. He sees the work of His son on the cross, where He bled and died, where my unrighteousness was put on Him, and His righteousness was imputed to me. That’s what He sees.
At month 4 debrief, we were told “God’s love for you is so THICK, He couldn’t care less about how you perform in this world.” I admit, I thought it was a little heretical. God, the perfect and holy Lord, doesn’t care how I perform in this world? He doesn’t care? Well, that’s just unbiblical. Trust me, I went to Bible college (ha.) Oh goodness, Stephanie.
Yes, God cares. He grieves when we sin. He delights when we delight in Him. But I focused on the semantics of this rather than the point.
GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU IS SO THICK THAT YOU CAN NEVER EARN HIS FAVOR, HE JUST PLAIN LOVES YOU.
In the Old Testament, God says to Israel, His chosen people, that He didn’t choose them because they were more numerous than all the other peoples, or anything like that. He basically says
“I’ve set my affection on you because I’ve set my affection on you.”
That’s what grace is. That’s what we’re supposed to live in the reality of. He’s set His affection on us because He’s set His affection on us.
We need to stop being religious and living in performance based Christianity.
This hit me hardest when we went to a Buddhist temple. I gawked at the religiosity of it all. The sadness that they thought they could earn favor by sacrifice, offering, and performing well for the next life – karma.
The way you present the gospel in a Buddhist nation is basically by saying, “…And then Jesus took all our karma on Himself at the cross, and gave us His karma, because He was perfect.” It just, culturally computes.
How dangerously close is our Christianity to religiosity and even Buddhism? Do we live in this idea of karma? That we can please God and He will therefore bless us in this life and then send us to heaven? Or that if we have bad karma, He doesn’t love us anymore?
Oh, how dangerously close we get.
Perhaps the oldest cliche in Christianity is that It’s Not A Religion, It’s A Relationship.
Awfully cheesy, but awfully true.
But we perform for God. I perform for God. I’m not okay with messing up. I’m not okay with not having it all together.
I think, subconsciously, I’ve set a standard for myself. And it’s not living in the love of Christ. It’s being the Proverbs 31 woman. At one point, in my journal, I wrote out each verse, and checked off the ones I have down, and wrote suggestions for the ones I don’t. Isn’t that absurd?
I feel like that woman is staring me in the face, telling me what I’ll never be.
Sure, I can “reach out my hands to the poor and the needy,” but, even though I’m getting better at it, I still struggle to “laugh at the time to come.”
But God’s love is big enough for my mess.
He un-overwhelmable.
So, this is my commitment to not live up to my unrealistic expectations. Or anyone else’s for that matter.
Hi, I’m Stephanie Christine Bernotas. I love God a whole lot. But I struggle with doubt. I struggle with living in His love and grace. I’m sometimes worried He won’t come through for me or take care of me. I try to control too much. I’m can be a wreck sometimes. But that’s not my identity. Nor is my identity in my uber-Christian resume. God doesn’t love me more because I can tell you the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism, nor does He loves me less because I was a little worried about my future. He has set His affection on my because He has set His affection on me. Anything I do is purely a thanks to Him for His love. My identity is a Daughter of God. Saved from myself, redeemed.
So Holy Spirit, whisper the gospel incessantly in our innermost ear every single day. We need to hear the gospel every single day. It’s not about us. It’s all about You. It’s not about us. It’s all about You.
(If you’re a fellow “good girl,” check out the book Grace For The Good Girl by Emily Freeman.)
