Take it all!

I'm a perfectionist. I'm (slowly) learning how to deal with the fact that I'll never actually be perfect, but it's often a challenge for me to see myself not living up to what I think I should be doing. For example, the other day I was playing the keys for my church's on-campus service. I found out sometime during the second song that I had the keyboard set to the wrong setting, which basically meant that the sound was completely messed up. When I finally realized what was going on, I immediately switched it to the right setting, which turned out to be much louder than what it had been on. Argh!

As frustrated as I was with myself for what seemed to me to be a complete fail, I realized something. God's goodness transcends anything I could ever do. My friends and anyone else in the group that night could still worship the Lord despite my mistakes. After a little while, God revealed to me that I could worship him too, even for my mistakes!

John 13:1-10 talks about how Jesus washed his disciples feet. Peter wanted nothing to do with it; all he knew was that his God was about to wash his dirty, smelly feet! But Jesus told Peter that if he didn't let Jesus wash his feet, he would "have no part" with Jesus. At that, Peter told Jesus that Jesus should wash his hands and head too! Jesus responded that the only part of Peter that was dirty was his feet, that nothing else needed cleaning.

The parts of me that are dirty in my eyes... every thing I've ever thought didn't measure up... Jesus wants to take charge of them. It's so easy for me to hold back and say, "no! You're too holy, don't come near my filth!" But Jesus tells me that I can "have no part" of him until I'm willing to give him everything. Jesus wants my best, yes. He also wants my worst. He wants the things that make me ashamed. He wants the things I can't seem to get right. And you know, it's humiliating to come before my Lord, my king, my love, and present him with my not-good-enoughs. But humility before my God is not a bad thing! When Peter realized that his dirt was a reason for receiving the touch of Christ, he tried to come up with more things that Jesus could clean. My sin and all my failures are reasons for Christ to come touch me, touch my life. No, I'm not going to go out and add dirt to my life to make sure that Jesus keeps on working with me. That would be foolishness! I have plenty of stuff for him to deal with, and I daily add to it without any kind of extra effort on my part. But I can now rejoice in the fact that I'll never quite measure up to perfection, because means that Christ will always be with me, dealing with me. I can sincerely praise him for that.