Daily Delight
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Over the past few months, I’ve been learning what it truly means to be honest with God. I’ve spent a good part of my Jesus-following life thinking I had to leave all my baggage at the door to talk to him, or had to act like life was shiny and perfect when it was anything but. It’s another way God has continued to dismantle the things I believed about Him that couldn’t be further from the truth of who He is.
But Jesus meets us exactly where we are. No matter the place we are or what we are feeling, our God is an empathizer who longs for us to let Him in to the middle of who we are. He’s a mighty counselor, and wants to be our comfort and resting place in the hardness of life. But is it hard for anyone else to accept this part of who God is? It is for me. I don’t know how to express my feelings to God. I’m afraid to expose my brokenness to Him, for fear that He’ll leave and I’ll be left behind to pick up the pieces on my own. So I shove it under the rug, and find comfort in the world instead of in His arms.
But the more I’ve studied scripture, the more I see people getting honest with God— and trusting Him with their brokenness.
In 1 Samuel 1, we hear about Hannah, who longed for a child— and cried out to God in deep anguish and frustration at her inability to have one. She poured her heart out to God, she put herself and her exact feelings out in the open for God to hear. I was struck by her boldness to be honest about her situation. There was nothing flowery about her prayer, nor did she dance around her feelings and desires— she called it out, and was unafraid to share her heart and her tears with a God she loved and trusted.
We see the same kind of speaking in the life of Job— who went through complete turmoil and trial to put his faith to the test. In Job 7, we see Job’s own words as he cries out to God; the verse that strikes me the most is Job 7:11:
“I cannot keep from speaking.
I must express my anguish.
My bitter soul must complain.”
If you continue to read, you’ll see Job do just that: he expresses his frustrations and anguish, pain throbbing from every word he says. As the Message version says, he lays it all on the table.
It’s hard to read, and I’ll be perfectly honest: I’ve thought a lot of the same things in my own life. But not once have I expressed them to God.
Our relationship with God isn’t meant to be one-sided, or us coming to Him with a honey-do list or a check-list of all the good works we did that day. We’re supposed to share our hurts and our pains, express our feelings and worries and hard thoughts— and then, like Hannah, we trust God with them, believing that He’ll hold them and use them for our good. We’re supposed to share the good things and our gratefulness too, but our God calls us to relationship— and that means the good, bad, and ugly in this life.
I want to trust God with boldness like Hannah and Job did. I want to feel like I can speak my mind to the God whom I call Father and friend. I want to trust that he holds my heart and all the mess in my world in his hands. But I have to share myself with Him first to do that.
We don’t have to hold back from God, no matter where we are in our walk with Him. We can be honest with Him about every part of who we are- He made all of us, anyway.
May we believe that we can come boldly to God with our emotions and our pain, and trust that He sees us exactly as we are, and will love us and all of our brokenness all the same.
Photo: @dreacoci
About the Author
Jordan Taylor
Jordan Taylor is a 22 year old student living in the suburbs of Nashville, her lifelong hometown. She is currently studying to be an English teacher, and hopes to have a classroom full of crazy, loud middle schoolers in her near future! Jordan enjoys reading, long walks (anywhere, not just the beach!), crafting, listening to music, playing with her pug, Lola, and writing. She is learning how to be brave, love adventure, and try new things (a lifetime work in progress!). Jordan loves Jesus with all that she is, and is learning to let Him love her too. She enjoys rambling and writing about her faith at her blog, http://taylorjm.blogspot.com/, and is excited to share her journey with you all on DOD!