Before I was really a Christian, and by that I mean before I really believed in my heart that Jesus came to save the world including me and that I was created to follow him, I had this problem I couldn't reconcile. You see, I could see the potential people had, including my own potential, but people were always falling short of it. It would really upset me. As a teenager, I watched friends make really awful decisions that hurt themselves and others, and it would eat me up because I knew they were better than that. I was hardest on myself, however, and every small mistake, every small word that I said that cut someone down, would be on continuous replay in my mind. The fact that I constantly fell short would immobilize me with depression and the fact that I was immobilized with a self-absorbed depression instead of being selfless would make me even more depressed. This dichotomy (between the way I saw people and the way people actually were) made me seem self-loathing and judgmental.
But what's beautiful and crazy is that the pieces of our character that can cause harm are actually characteristics created in us to be used for God's glory once Jesus begins to transform our hearts. What is true is that people do fall short. In Romans 3:23, it says "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Somehow, even before I was living for Jesus I could see this was true. And now, I continue to see people's potential, but it is something greater than before because God allows me to see people through his lens- the individual person he loves and who he created them to be. It is so powerful because it enables me to love people beyond what I am capable of on my own. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with the love I have for people that I totally freak them out. If it's a man, sometimes it just gets awkward. If it's a person who seems utterly unlovable, well, that's when it gets revolutionary. That's how strong and powerful and sweet God's love is for his children!
What I've come to realize is that walking with Jesus is a lifetime process. But the most incredible part of this process is that the transformed version of myself that I am becoming is who I was created to be, who I truly am, and how God, my Father in his sweet love for me, sees me. The reason I am not who I'm supposed to be is proof of the brokenness of this world.
And sometimes I get the privilege of looking at a child of God and seeing who God created them to be even when they are lying in the dark, captive by their brokenness. It's a humbling and incredible gift- those glimpses. It's like a window into heaven and I pray that all his children know the freedom and light that the radical love of Jesus brings. And sometimes I want to just look them in the eye and say, 'Jesus loves you.' It can feel like an overused slogan but the tiny glimpse of how much Jesus loves you is an overwhelming, life-changing, universe-shattering truth that our hearts and minds cannot even contain. So I leave you with this: JESUS LOVES YOU. And may you marvel at those words as if you never heard them before.
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