Mistakes

There is nothing like the feeling of knowing you have peace with God. To know His heart and how He feels about us shatters every fear that hides in the shadows of our hearts. I don't know about you, but fear seems to be something that I struggle with often. I was listening to someone speak on fear the other day. He was saying that for a long time His motive in loving Jesus was one of fear. He thought if He could show God how devoted He was and that his devotion was one that was unique among anyone else, that He would somehow accept Him. It was basically a fear that He would not be pleasing to God. Therefore, He was trying to measure up by being extra devoted to the things that are important to God. I've been there before and it is the most tiring thing anyone can ever try to do. Other people take it the complete opposite direction. Because of their fear of not measuring up, they give up and quit trying all together. I mean, they are never going to be perfect enough, so why keep trying.

The good thing is that we don't have to try and measure up. The good news is that we can stop striving and start accepting His love for us right now where we are at in our weakness, quirkiness, and screw-ups. The biggest lessons I have learned in life are from my mistakes. He likes to take our mistakes, and instead of getting in our faces and condemning us, He will take them and make them into something beautiful that we can look back on and see His love even in the midst of it. Is that not all of our stories anyways? Let's face it, we are all disfunctional to some extent. God LOVES disfunctional people like you and I. He not only loves us, He wants us. He is patient with us, gentle with us, and looks past our weakness more than we realize. His words flow from a tender heart that sees the best in us, not the worst, which is what we tend to focus on.

I love this scripture: "Give thanks to the Father who has qualified you..." Colossians 1:12. If you are someone who has made a lot of mistakes in your life, you are qualified. That is the very thing that qualifies you to be loved by God. Mistakes are the very thing that gives us the opportunity to experience Jesus' compassion and love. Mistakes are mistakes, but they can be the best thing that ever happen to us if we let God in to those places of shame, fear, and guilt. It feels good to have peace with God, to know that because of Him we are qualified. Be encouraged. You are very important to Him.