Wanted

Whats something we all seem to struggle with? Whats one thing in the human life that we all crave in one form or another? Acceptance. Whether when we are kids looking up to our parents or at school or in the work place, we all want to be accepted. Anyone disagree? If you do, go to any pastor or shrink and ask them, its sadly true.

Now, acceptance may be something we all need, yet we never seem to find enough of it. When we as humans crash and burn, we generally search for something to give our life meaning. This can take many forms: drugs, relationships, family, religion or an idea (patriotism, pacifism etc). Looking at these, what is one that stands out? Drugs? Yeah a little bit. The one that is truly different from the rest is "religion". Why you ask? Religion, if it should fail you is the one that thing you are guaranteed to shut out. Ideas fail yet there are many others for us, family can be acquired, drugs are an addiction, we are always forming relationships whether we like it or not. This "religion" on the other hand is very easily brushed aside.

Now personally I believe church/religion is a very hard place to find acceptance in the way you want it. We look to the people in the church to accept us, even sometimes adapt to us. Even if we just craved unbiased acceptance I believe church/religion will fail in giving you true acceptance. Yes the others all fail you too, but we expect church/religion to work. We expect the people in the church to accept us. . . . . . .

As a Christian I say that is a stupid thing to do. I say stop wanting acceptance from the people, for if you are or are not a Christian, we all can accept the fact that humans are not perfect. Stop going to church going to get acceptance. Its setting yourself up to fail. Christians and non Christians alike all do it. We crave acceptance in our little gatherings. We want to fit in, keep that meaning in life. In doing so we forget the reason why we should be there. We forget the greatest act of acceptance ever done. . . .

Its just been Easter. I ate some choc eggs. I ate hot cross buns. They all tasted great. I even remembered why Christians have the "Easter" holiday. I thought back to Christ, that He died for me, that He rose again and granted me salvation if I should choose it. Now as I pondered this on Sunday morning, as I read what Christ did and how He acted while going through this painful process I realised that Christ accepted that He had to die, that He had to suffer. No greater love have a man for his brother than to lay down his life for him. He showed us the ultimate love. The ultimate acceptance of us.

When we go to church, when we pray, do we think that God loves us no matter what? No matter how imperfect we are? I don't think we do. We need to get out of our heads that God is sitting up there with a big ugly stick waiting to beat us. God accepted us as we were, are and are to be. No arguments. God doesn't accept our sins, but our sins are not us. When we go to God, with all our imperfection and taint, with all that "ugly sin" or "impurity", we need to remember that God wants to forgive us, wants to wipe our slate clean, to help us. God wants us to be in relationship with Him. God wants us to feel loved by Him. God wants you to feel wanted.

Think on this old yet overlooked factor.

Try and get your head around the fact that God wants you.



LJA