I am rich

The past month seemed an eternity - a day's worth of work felt like a week; days dragged on and time slowed to a crawl. When I have my periodic minor existential crises, I feel like it's God saying, "Slow down; to me a day is a thousand years." And therefore, a day became a thousand years.

I was whining. I was thinking about all I didn't have, I was thinking about why I should love or serve others when I am lacking so much. Then I tunnel-visioned myself into demanding a single thing from God - I wanted people to treat me exactly one way and one way alone and any other way just wouldn't do.

Then came the blame game. It's the world's fault, it's the fault of generations past that I felt neglected in the ways that I did. It's everyone else's spiritual poverty that's causing this to happen. I needed a scapegoat. Friends, family, leaders, bosses, teachers just weren't living up to my expectations. I needed more.

The poor man's mentality. It was mentioned in our sermon at church this past Sunday.

So the mantra goes: I have little so I have nothing to give.

And that's how I was operating. I felt like I had something to prove with my life; that I had to be better so that people would treat me better. Either that, or other people had to be better. Someone had to change. But one distinct reminder came in the form of a song - that Christ is enough. He made us rich:

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9)

I was looking for a scapegoat and I found one. A rich man who gave it all so that we might have eternal riches. And as long as I remember the riches I have found in Christ - the joy of knowing God's presence, the humility of being God's child, the encouragement of having a purpose - I cannot complain, I cannot expect any more. Christ is enough.

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Philippians 3:8)

This past week, I watched the Blue Like Jazz movie, which... despite having backed on Kickstarter in production, I never got around to watching until now, a year after it was released because I thought I was done with all the "emergent" Christianity stuff. But I discovered I could watch it for free with my roommate's Amazon Prime account so I figured... why not?

Spoiler alert. The closing scene is where the main character, who was so ashamed of his Christianity in a liberal culture, chooses to apologize on behalf of other Christians, of other people, and what they had done to cause pain in another student's life. And in it, I saw the gospel - it is as if we came to God to apologize for our sin, to repent, and He stopped us mid-sentence, came right back at us and apologized for what we did and took the blame. And in doing so, gave us free life; freed us from all guilt and shame. It was grace we didn't deserve from the only one who needn't apologize for anything. And so I was reminded of this - that when Jesus gave up his riches for a spoiled brat like myself who demanded more, he fixed my brokenness.

Whatever I feel I didn't get, I got a million times over from God in Christ. Pick a thing I lack - familial love, friendships, money, fame, fortune, reputation. I have been given a counterpart that will fill and replace each one of these things to overflowing.

repentance

From Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart by J.D. Greear (p. 59):

We must be particularly careful to clarify confession and repentance, because confession can feel purifying. Many people are looking for exoneration, be that from a friend, a spouse, a counselor, a pastor, or Jesus. They just want someone to tell them they're "OK." Biblical repentance, however, is not merely a request for exoneration; it is a change of heart about our sin. Even confession of our sin to Jesus, soaked with tears, but apart from a change of attitude toward our sin, will not bring about eternal life. Confession is part of the repentance process, but not the sum total of it.