"Candidly

Ahh the good ol' days of childhood... when screwing up meant getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar... or better yet, with cookie CRUMBS all over your face.

And yet, when asked by our sweet mother if we ate a cookie from the cookie jar, we still put on our most sincere face... and denied it.

Looking back, it seems so silly, doesn't it? I mean, can you imagine what must have been going through Mom's mind as we swore up and down with our cookie-covered lips that we were innocent?

And yet, as silly as that seems to us now, we still do the same thing with God today... and far more often than most of us are probably willing to admit. We come to him in prayer, or in worship, and we put on our best song and dance, thinking that's what He longs for, when what he REALLY longs for is US... just as we are... crying out our need FOR Him, TO Him.

I've got this sweet 25th anniversary Rubik's Cube in my house that is still in the box... totally solved... never even taken apart. Once upon a time I knew how to solve the thing myself, but now I just like telling friends that I solved my 25th anniversary cube that has never left it's box. Reality, though, would say that MY Rubik's Cube (the one that never even HAD a box in the first place) is a mess.

How silly I must look to God when I come in to church on Sunday, acting like I've got my life together... like everything's fine... like I'm as solved as my 25th anniversary Rubik's Cube.

If I REALLY wanted to be honest with God and the people around me, I'd say I DON'T have it all figured out... I'd say I have plenty of things in life that I'm struggling with... that there are times when I wonder if I'm even making the right choices with my life.

That's the relationship I want to have with God. One that is honest and real... like a candid photograph. You know the kind-- it lacks that cheesy, forced, Olan-Mills-says-turn-your-head-20-degrees-to-
the-right-and-smile expression. It's a woman weeping on her front porch steps. It's a guy in the stands, jumping up and down screaming like a mad man when his team wins the big game on a last second touchdown pass. It's the look of shock on a daughter's face when she hears her father was just taken to the hospital. It's not faked, or forced... it's real... it's candid.

That's where I'm at on this Friday, the 8th of December. Asking God to erase the facade of my "solved" life... asking him to come and unsolve me with His love... bringing me to a place where I can be candid with Him...

And knowing that he sees all the cookie crumbs that cover my face, and loves me anyway.