Messy People

Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments . . .1 Kings 2:2

I have flawed ways in which I see the world. One of the faulty things I do is to insist that everything is black or white. When someone offends me, they become a bad person, as I categorize people as good or bad. This has led to significant frustration then, when someone good does something evil. How can a decent person do something so awful? I thought he was a good guy. I guess not.

When I read King David’s last words to his son, Solomon, I had a similar reaction. David gave his son fantastic advice on being kingly, which Solomon must have seen as a little hypocritical. Follow God’s commandments? Like you did with my mother when you murdered her husband? Is that what you mean?

The truth is not as black and white as I would like it to be. People do not easily divide into good and bad. It does not take much introspection to see this when I look in the mirror. My life has certainly not been all good, but it’s not been all bad either. I’m more than a little messy.

My faulty view of the world misleads me to think that when someone becomes a Christian, that he automatically becomes really good and then, when he fails, I question his faith. I mistakenly think that God automatically removes all the messiness of life when we place our faith in Him.

God does not forcibly remove our messiness though. When we come to faith in Christ, we absolutely find the freedom to follow Him, but we also retain the freedom to follow our flesh nature. Our flesh is not made perfect, so as long as we are in this life, we will feel the gravity of its flaws.

We continue to be messy people, living in a messy world. Daily then, we must do whatever it takes to point our lives at God, so that we may know the life for which we were made.