No More Coverups

Warning: this post may challenge you and make you uncomfortable, if that scares you I hope you keep reading! =)

So lately I've been confronted with a lot of sin in my life. It's pretty much always been there in one form or another and I fairly recently learned how much it was impacting my life. That was probably a year ago that this realization occured. You want to know how many people I told? Zero. Yeah, and that's the first issue I want to address here.

As Christians we tend to get so comfortable in our "Christianity" (I say this in quotes because I don't think this was ever intended to be a part of real Christianity) that we get over God using us. We get so "old" or "mature" in our Christian lives that we think that God is done using us for our mistakes and is ready to start using us for our amazingly great acts of service, because we've been Christians so long we don't mess up and we don't struggle with the "Big Sins." Well, let me say flat out: I am a Christian and I do struggle with sin. a lot. And I think that every Christian who is brutally honest with themselves will agree. If you're having trouble with this and don't think you apply, maybe sit down with a close friend and see what they may think you struggle with (it may be pride... just saying) and confront your sin. Come face to face with the fact that you, yes wonderful little Jesus loving you, do struggle with sin on a daily basis.

Ok, now to the even more nitty gritty (oh goodie =)). I think that we go so far with this sin/struggle covering up business that we find ourselves both a.) deceiving ourselves and believing that we really don't struggle with sin, and b.) thinking that we are alone in our struggle because no one else wants to admit it either. So we're all stuck in this viscious cycle of holding in what we deal with to appear as everyone else does. Now, what does this make us? Dumb. We're all covering up ourselves to look like each other, how confusing.
(Does your head hurt yet? Mine does! You can do it, just a few more paragraphs!)
So to combat thinking that you really don't stuggle with sin, I suggest you sit down and shine light on every aspect of who you are until you find what it is, and then go to war with it! Fight it, ask God to remove it and give you strength!
And to combat you thinking you're alone, and this is the icky part: tell someone. Fact is, we're all struggling with something and just waiting for someone they can talk to about it without feeling ashamed. But if we all keep our masks of perfection and super-spirituality on then we can't help each other with our issues. We're all dying behind our fascade of perfection. How ironic!

Why is it so hard to be real? Maybe it's because it's icky. No one wants to deal with bad behaviors/sins. No one wants to talk about the fact that they can't stop thinking about sex, or that they're addicted to food, or that they lie constantly just for attention. It's awkward and embarrassing. UNLESS, you both deal with it. Then it's progress. It's a mutual realization of sin and a way to move forward together. We weren't meant to do life alone. God created and Adam and saw that it was not good for him to be alone! How are you and I different from that? (hint: we're not!) God created us as his body to lift each other up and to mend each others wounds, isn't that what the body does? But if we don't let anyone know we're hurt how will they be able to help us heal? I'm not saying healing can't happen just between you and God, but a good sister or brother in Christ is exactly the catalyst God prescribes.

My advice, just do it. Forget being the perfect little cookie cutter Christian and open yourself up to the idea that God may be letting you deal with this specific sin in order for you to help someone else with the same issue. Showing people that you're not perfect does not make you look weak, instead it shows that you do not rely on this world for your worth but on God. Not saying it's easy, by all means it's probably one of the hardest things to do, but if you really want to see God at work in your life, be clay in his hands. He'll take you on one crazy ride, I promise.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10
⁷ Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! ⁸ Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. ⁹ And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. ¹⁰ Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.