God-shaped hole

This passage (Mark 10:17-22) has always had a way of breaking my heart. I don't know what it is. Maybe I see myself in the rich young man (as poor as I feel) or maybe I worry that I would be like him in the same situation.

It's interesting to me that when the young man asks Jesus what he needs to do to gain eternal life, Jesus gives him the 'love your neighbor' portion of the ten commandments: no murder, no adultery, no stealing, no false witness, no defrauding, honor your parents. The young man says that he's done all these things since he was young.

I wonder what the man's demeanor was like. Had he reached a point of desperation in his life? Had he tried to buy happiness and contentment and found it lacking? Had he tried leading a 'good' life and found it unfulfilling? His response, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth," sounds desperate. I imagine there was a note of pleading in his voice. Please, please, tell me what will fill me up. Tell me what will make this emptiness in my heart go away.

Jesus looks at him and loves him. He sees the God-shaped hole in the young man's heart. He sees somone who longs for something more.

But I think Jesus also saw the giant chain around that God-shaped hole. The man had tried to lock his possessions into that hole and had convinced himself that without those things, he would have no worth. No meaning.

Jesus asked him to unlock those chains. He asked him to let go of the things that prevented God from filling in the hole in his heart. He asked him to obey the 'love the Lord your God' portion of the ten commandments. He even reassures the man that if he gives away his earthly possessions, he will be reimbursed in heaven.

But the young man can't do it. He can't let go. Those things, those chains have become something of a security blanket. He believes that they keep him together, that without those chains, everything would fall apart. He would cease to be.

We are built with God-shaped holes in our hearts and only God can fill that hole. As I think about myself, I wonder what chains I have fashioned to try to force other things into that hole. My ministry perhaps? My ambition? What am I unwilling to unlock so that God can fill that hole completely?

It's a scary thing to let go. It's terrifying to unlock those chains because that hole holds our identity and contentment, both things that God can give us completely if we let him. If we choose to not lock him out.

As leaders, we have to more quickly come to the place of letting go so that God can fill that hole in our hearts. We have to come to the place where God and only God satisfies us. I say 'have to' because it is exceedingly hard to encourage anyone else to let go and unlock their chains if we can't do it ourselves.

Run an audit of your heart. What are your chains? What do you need to let go of? Addictions? Possessions? Achievements? How can we help each other let go so that God can more fully come in?

Jesus doesn't force us to let God fill in that hole. He let the young man walk away. He didn't chase after him. Jesus will never force us to do anything. He will ask us to do things out of love for him, but we are free to choose not to.

Just remember, if we choose to unlock our chains and let go of the things we hold in our God-shaped holes, we will gain treasure in heaven. We will gain freedom. We will gain contentment and identity.

Best of all, we get God.

salt and stumbling

I've decided that today's passages (Mark 9:41-42, 50) really defines the philosophy of my life and my faith. They talk about two things: stumbling blocks and salt. What do the two have to do with each other? Well, not much at first glance but a whole lot if you take a little time to think about it.

Jesus commands us not to put a stumbling block in front of 'these little ones'. What does this mean? I always take it to mean that we, as Christians, must never ever ever do anything to prevent people from coming to God. We must never think ourselves as so good or so righteous that we exclude others from God's love. I don't ever want someone to look at me and think, "God must love her more because of this or that." I don't ever want someone to see the things I do and think to themselves, "I could never do that, therefore I am not as good." I don't want these things because I share two things with everyone in the world: I am sinful and God is love.

When you strip everything else away, that's all you're left with. We are sinful and God is love. We're all broken. We're all damaged goods. We all make bad choices. But God is love. God loves who we are because he created us. Once we REALLY begin to understand these two concepts, that's when we find hope. That's when we start to realize that our mission is not to be 'good' people. Our mission is to be God's people and to show his love to this sinful world.

The other part of this verse is about salt. I don't know much about salt except that it makes your food taste better, melts ice off roads and can be used to preserve fresh foods. The weird thing about salt is that inspite of the fact that it has it's own taste, what it really does is bring out the truer flavor of the food. Too much salt and you notice it, but just enough and you don't even know it's there.

As Christians, we need to be salty. We need to bring out the true flavors of God's world. God created the world perfect. We're the ones that messed it up. But we can work to regain that perfection. We can be God's salt that begins to reveal the true flavors of this world.

The one other thing that struck me from this verse was the instruction to "Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Getting along and being at peace seems to contribute to good saltiness. Interesting.

I hope that I can be salt and not a stumbling block.

self-absorbed

You may not think that self-absorbed would be something used to describe me, but it is. I'm ridiculously self-absorbed. I like the attention of a job well done. I like when people tell me I'm good at things. I like when people find me attractive or smart or funny. I want the whole world to see me in a certain light and I go out of my way to make sure they do. I don't advertise my faults. I don't tell people how bad of a procrastinator I really am. They don't see all the jobs I half-arse. They don't see when I needlessly snap at Vergil because I'm in a bad mood.

I'm my own ultimate spin doctor and I hate to say it, but I'm good at my job.

In the end, we're all self-obsessed, self-absorbed, self-serving and selfish. Our sinful nature allows us to be no other way.

But what do we do to counter this? What steps do we take to become less self-absorbed? I think Jesus gives an answer in today's passage (Mark 9:30-37). He says,

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.

Jesus wants us to look beyond ourselves and our own selfish ambition. He wants us to look to children, to the disenfranchised, to the needy and unwelcome among us. When we do that, we stop thinking so much about ourselves. When we do that, we become more like Jesus.

It's interesting to me how Jesus took very little care of himself in the ways we tend to take care of ourselves. We never hear about him going out to buy music or clothes or even food. The one thing we do hear is the times when Jesus goes away to be with God, his father. That's how Jesus takes care of himself - he plugs into his Father.

Jesus seems to put little stock in obsessing about self. His focus is on ushering in the kingdom of God. His focus is on touching people's lives so that they can be complete and whole again.

What can I do to be more like Jesus? What can I do to become less self-absorbed? I think I'm gonna start looking for more opportunities to welcome 'one such child' to start...

a high calling

Today's passage (Mark 8:34-9:1) is a hard one to swallow. Jesus calls us to 'take up your cross and follow me.' When you sit and ponder what this means, you begin to realize that Jesus is not just asking us to follow him in his way of suffering, but all the way to death itself.

At our retreat, we went through some of the Catholic Stations of the Cross. This was a tangible way for us to understand what it really means to 'take up our cross.' The cross was not a pleasant instrument. It did not give Jesus' audience warm fuzzies when he referenced it. The cross was an implement of torture and death. Those who were executed on it were some of the worst criminals of their time: serial murderers, violent sex offenders and the like. The cross was not a 'humane' way to execute people, either. It was brutal and just about as unmerciful as you could get. It was not a quick death. It was a slow suffocation in extreme pain. It sometimes took days for the person to die.

And this is what Jesus calls us to. The road of suffering. The road of death. Why would he ask this of us? Didn't he die so that we could live? Yes. But he died so that we could live in right relationship with God, not so that we could go on our merry way and have everything be neat and perfect. Following Jesus costs us everything. It demands our death - death to ourselves, our selfish ambitions, our disregard for others. But if we lose that life, we gain a new one. We gain a life we can't even imagine.

We gain freedom because we're able to give and recieve forgiveness.

We gain access to God in all his glory. Following Jesus down the road of suffering and to death also includes following him into glory. You can't just saunter into the glory without everything that comes before it. You can't turn your eyes away from the suffering of your Jesus, thinking, 'Why would he let himself be humiliated that way?' and assume you can still follow him.

It makes me wonder again - is true joy possible without suffering? I don't think the two can exist seperately.

Christianity is a high calling. Following Jesus is not always pretty. Yes, we get to experience forgiveness, miracles, healings and the like, but we also experience suffering. Rejection from a world that believes in a 'Me First' philosophy. Sometimes we're even rejected by the people closest to us.

But there is a payoff. We get to experience God's glory. We get to throw off the sin of this world and run like little kids into our Dad's arms to be loved completely and forever.

I can't wait.

the paradox of suffering

I've been thinking a lot this week about why bad things happen to good people. A good friend of mine just found out some really bad news regarding her dad. He has to endure something that he doesn't deserve. He is being punished for something he didn't do and I can't figure out why. Why did God not intervene? Why did God not bring his justice when it was needed the most? I can't answer those questions and it bothers me.

And then I read the story in Mark 8:27-33 where Jesus asks his disciples about who they say he is. Peter is the first to answer, "You are the Messiah." Jesus then immediately begins to talk about all the suffering that the Messiah must endure. I can imagine how conflicted the disciples must have been hearing about that. Their understanding of 'Messiah' had nothing to do with suffering. They believed the Messiah would be a conquerer, a king - someone who would destroy their oppressors in a blaze of glory.

Only trouble was, Jesus' blaze of glory had nothing to do with the death of Israel's enemies and everything to do with his own death.

Peter can't stomach the things Jesus is saying. "Don't, stop, please. You're scaring the men. You're not going to die. You're not going to suffer. You're the Messiah! God wouldn't let that happen."

And Jesus rebukes him. "Get behind me, Satan. You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

My humanity prevents me from seeing things from God's point of view. I want instant gratification. I want all my friends and loved ones to be protected from pain and suffering. I want God to put a force field around me and all Christians so that they never have to endure any kind of hurt. But that's not the way it works. Even my Jesus had to suffer. Even my Jesus had to hurt. Even my Jesus had to die.

Life on this planet will never be free of suffering. Adam and Eve's choice to sin ensured that. Jesus' choice to suffer and die, however, ensures that Christians are not bound to suffer forever. Our pain and hurt are temporary. The injustices we endure at the hands of our fellow humans will not be repeated in heaven. In fact, they'll be straightened out in heaven.

The war has been won, definitively. Satan has no power over us anymore. That doesn't mean he won't still try to hurt us, though. When we set our mind on divine things, we begin to see our suffering for what it really is - the work of an angry, defeated enemy. We begin to see that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12).

Fight on.

asking for a sign

Today's passage is about the Pharisees asking Jesus for a sign. They want him to prove to them that he is who he says through something earth shattering and unusual.

The people he has healed are not enough. The truth of his message is not enough. His miracles are not enough. I have to wonder - what would have been enough for them? Destroying the Romans who were occupying Israel? Exalting the Pharisees to the right hand of God? What? What would it have taken?

Sometimes I want a 'bigger' sign. Sometimes watching the sun rise or the seasons change is not enough. I want tongues and miracles and healings and spiritual drunkenness and the ability to see angels. I want something spectacular and surreal.

But that's not the point of our God. The point is not to want these things. The point is to want him. To want him and love him above all else. The 'special' signs are not bad or evil, but they're not distributed so that people can 'know for sure' that God is who he says he is. They are distributed so that those who know him and love him completely and above all else can experience him anew.

I think God revealed himself to us this weekend. I think he poured out his spirit on our retreat and spoke to the hearts and minds of the youth that were there, whether or not they even realized it was happening.

God will meet us where we are. We just need to come wanting to meet him, not wanting some dramatic experience to make us feel special. We're already special! We're bought and paid for and that's about the most dramatic thing you can imagine!

crumbs from your table

You might think I'm quoting a U2 song today and that's mostly true. Today's scripture reading is the basis of that song, though. It's about a Gentile woman who comes to Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter. This is one of the instances where you might think Jesus was being really rude. He doesn't console her and tell her that everything's gonna be all right. No, he tells her, it's not fair to throw good food to the dogs when the children are hungry. In essence, he's calling her a unfit for his healing. The Jews should be offered his healing and redemption first.

I think Jesus knew this woman from the moment she walked into the house. I think he knew she was embarrassed to be there. I think he knew that she had been harrassed and put down by Jews her whole life. I think he wanted to see whether she was able to forgive those who had tormented her. We've already seen that Jesus had little use for Jews who thought they had the lion's share of God's love just because they were careful about what rules they followed.

Jesus wanted to know - do you, you woman, you non-Jew, really believe in me? Do you really understand that you're not a dog? That you too are God's child? I don't think he was accusing her of being a dog, I think he was saying what she was really thinking in her heart of hearts: "This man will not help me because he is a Jew. He will write me off as a Gentile and as a woman and let my child suffer."

"But he's my last hope so I will ask him anyway."

I love her answer: "Even the dogs eat the crumbs from the children's table." She is not deterred by his rudeness. She is not thrown off because his reaction is what she expected. I think she heard the laughter in Jesus' voice. I think she knew she'd come to the right person. I think she knew he was inviting that response.

That blows me away. That Jesus could know us so well. Could know all of our cynicism and doubts and turn it around and make us acknowledge what we've known all along - we really are his. No one else's but his. All he's waiting for is for us to come running.

control freak

I admit it. My name is Krista and I am a control freak. I need to feel in control of the things that happen to me in my life and I feel very disrupted and disturbed when I don't have that control.

Sadly, I don't have as much control as I like to think I do. I can't control other people, only my reactions to them. I can't control world events like tsunamis and earthquakes and hurricanes. I can't control death.

It's funny how I often become obsessive about the little things I can control, like the neatness of my apartment or the amount of work I do or the kind of food I eat. It gives me that sense of being in control when I might not be. I've always said that you can tell the state of my mind my the state of my desk. If it's neat and clean, I usually have a lot on my mind and need to keep my desk orderly or I start to feel like I'm losing it. If my desk is a little messier than usual, that usually means I don't have as much to think about and don't feel that desperate need to keep my desk as clean.

Reading today's passage, it occurred to me that maybe I'm not the only one who picks on the little things in order to avoid the bigger issues that feel more out of my control.

The Jews have a whole system of rules and regulations surrounding food. I don't know them all, but I do know some of them: no pork and no mixing dairy and meat in the same dish. There are more, but I can't recall them all. Anyway, Jesus comes along and tells them, "Look, God gave you those rules for a purpose - to keep you healthy and to help you recognize your separateness from the pagan nations you were coming into contact with. But food does not make you more or less holy in God's eyes. Nothing that you put into your body makes you more or less holy to God. What does make you 'unclean' is what comes out of you - your words and actions and behaviors."

Food is an easy thing to control. We all decide what we will and won't eat every day. The Jews thought that if they were careful to control what they put into their bodies, then they would be acceptable to God. This abdicated them from the responsibility of being 'good people' in their words, actions and behaviors.

Christians don't focus on food necessarily, but we do have a number of easily controllable rules and regulations that we often cling to so that we can ignore our guilt about not being good people in our words, actions and behaviors. We go to church. We give our money to charitible organizations. We get involved in a ministry. All good things, but sometimes we're in danger of believing that these things we do make us more or less holy to God.

Let's pay attention to the state of our hearts first...

not nice at all

I've decided that Jesus was not a 'nice' man. Not in the way I usually define 'niceness'. I have yet to read a passage in which he speaks with the Pharisees and is 'nice' to them. He does not use pretty words to pursuade them to his point of view. He does not placate or coddle them in any way. He tells it straight up. He calls them hypocrites and vipers and probably every other derroggatory names he could think of.

Interesting.

It strikes me, reading today's passage, that the Pharisees didn't really know God. I could just imagine them scouring their volumes and volumes of books written about their religon, trying to find something with which they could trip Jesus up. The funny thing is, all they come up with are petty rules and regulations. "Ah-ha! Your disciples never washed their hands before they started eating! And you call yourself a Rabbi!"

And Jesus just scoffs. He tells them off. "You people really have no idea, do you? You think you know my Father, but all you know are a bunch of petty rules your fathers made up to make themselves feel better about their cold, bitter hearts."

I wonder how often we as Christians do that. We harp on and on about a variety of 'moral issues' like homosexuality and abortion and euthenasia and stem cell research and pornography - the list is endless. But to what end? Do we raise a stink about these things because we really care about people or because it makes us feel better about our cold, bitter hearts?

I have friends who are passionate and opinionated about some of the aforementioned issues but I just can't do it. I can't look at a guy like Jesus and the way he treated the various people in his life and convince myself that he would have protested at an abortion clinic or written petitions about not allowing homosexuals to marry. That's not the Jesus I know.

The Jesus I know was hardest on the people who thought they had it all together. He was hardest on those who thought they knew what was morally right. He called them hypocrites and vipers. He didn't mince words with them. He pounded them over the head with their callous, legalistic, heartless behaviour. He pointed out how oppressive and unloving they were towards those who didn't fit their 'moral molds'.

Somehow, I don't think that's changed much. I think Jesus is still hardest on Christians. He expects more of us. He expects us to know his Father. He expects us to love like a child - unabashed and unashamed. He expects us to pursue the unlovely and heal the broken and battered and bruised. He wants us to live right lives, yes, but he wants us to focus on loving people - not condemning them. We need to love people first so that they can know the Jesus that saved them before we can teach them how to live right lives.

The Pharisees lacked love. Let's make sure we're not found lacking.

healing

Today's passage, in fact, this whole week's set of passages are about Jesus reaching out to the sick and the disenfranchised (people no one wanted anything to do with).

As I read today's passage, I wondered, if Jesus came today, in this day and age, would modern medicine render his healing miracles unimpressive? Back in Jesus' time, they didn't have all of the medical and technical advances we have tody, so any healing of even common illnesses would've been impressive. Would we have been as impressed today?

I'm pretty sure Jesus knew exactly what time period he wanted to enter into. Our day and age would probably have largely ignored him. He would not have had the same kind of impact at all. Our culture is so saturated by noise that no one would've been able to hear his voice above all the racket.

It's an interesting thought.

One of the questions posed on the Sacred Space website was whether there was anything I needed Jesus to heal in me. I'm not physically sick right now, and I'm pretty sure I'm okay emotionally and mentally. Spiritually - spiritually, I don't know. I'm doing better than I was even a year ago.

I'm feeling a little vaguely uneasy, which is usually how Vergil feels when he's working too hard but not being as productive as he'd like to be. The youth retreat is this weekend and I don't feel entirely ready for it. Maybe that's what it is, I don't know.

Anyway, I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts - either on this passage or what's going in on your own lives right now.

be strong and courageous

Alrighty then. Just as I was about to start writing, four or five pressing things interrupted me and now I've lost whatever train of thought I might've had.

But I'm a good talker, so I'm sure I'll come up with something.

First of all, however, I just want to say that the sun is shining today. Actually, it broke through the clouds about an hour after I was griping about it yesterday. God's got a quirky sense of humor.

God is very dramatic. I enjoy that about him. He doesn't just give us a habitat to live in, he gives us "THE WORLD" with fantastic light shows every morning and night, weather systems that keep us on our toes, a huge variety of plants and animals (so many we haven't even discovered them all yet) and a range of personalities in people that's just about incomprehesible.

That's why I always love when God tells people in the Bible to "Be strong and courageous." He doesn't just say, "Buck up, Bucko!" or "Chin high there, Sport!" or anything like that. He smacks them across the face with a "Pull yourself together, man! This is no time for shaking in your boots! Be strong! Be courageous! I've got your back!"

That's what I love about God. He doesn't just pat us on the back and wish us luck. He locks arms with us and says, "Be strong and courageous." Not in ourselves, not in our own power, but in him. In his work in our lives. In his plan for his world.

Over the last week, I've been reading articles in a December issue of Time Magazine about Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates. They were named Time's 'People of the Year.' I was completely fascinated and enthralled. They're not the people of the year because they're a famous celebrity and the richest couple in the world. They're the people of the year because they are making a measurable and massive impact on world poverty and global health.

And they're not just throwing money at the problem.

They're throwing themselves, completely and wholeheartedly with a passion and intensity that I envy. Honestly, I would not be surprised if Bono were to say that he had been greeted by an angel who told him to "Be strong and courageous." His mission is righteous. God did not intend for there to be poor among us and he's out to prove that with his foundation called DATA.

Bill and Melinda Gates probably would've required some sort of official memo from God instructing them to "Be strong and courageous," but they rise to the challenge nonetheless. They go on 'learning tours' every year of some of the most impoverished places in the world so that they can assess how their foundation (soon to be endowed for almost $34 billion!) can best help the people there improve their lives.

The articles made my heart stir. And it wasn't because of guilt for once. I could never have the impact on the world that they are having. I don't have the money, celebrity or contacts that they do. Besides which, they're doing a pretty good job and I'd hate to muck that up! :oP

No, my heart stirred because I could almost feel the shift in the motivations of the world's rich. They've stopped throwing money at various problems in order to make themselves feel less guilty for being rich. Now they're pouring not only their money but their lives into issues that will actually change the condition of the world's most underpriviledged people.

That's encouraging to me because our culture is designed in such a way that where the powerful (or notorious) go, there go everyone else. If the powerful and notorious are finally getting their heads out of their arses and looking to the world beyond their million-dollar homes, then maybe the rest of us will follow suit and stop being so self-absorbed.

I think God's calling us all to "Be strong and courageous" within the tasks he has given us. He's got our back and he will use us to bring him glory, whether or not we are rich or famous!

drawing a blank

There are many verses in the Bible (or even whole books of it) that mean little or nothing to me. I can't glean anything out of them no matter how long I stare at them. They're the kind of verses I need 5 different reference books for just to figure out what the context even is.

Today's verse is one of those for me. I don't know how much insight I'll be able to give on it. It's about Jesus being taken to the temple when he was 8 days old to be circumcised according to the laws of Moses.

The only thing I can think of is that this shows how Jesus was connected to God's people, tracing all the way back to Moses. What else is there to say? Jesus has a purpose and a place in the history of the Jews. Not only that, but he fulfilled all their laws, even as he submitted to them himself.

And all I can think about is how badly I want to see the sun. It's been gray and dreary for days and I'm craving blue sky like nothing else right now. Looking out into the horizon driving to and from work, it's only the occassional tree that separates the sky from the snow. Everything's a grayish shade of white. I'm ready for spring. I don't know how much more of this indecisive weather I can take.

I sometimes worry that one day God's gonna get sick of my whining. I can be so ungrateful when I know I should be bursting with praise for all the ways I've been blessed. "Yeah, thanks for all that, but you missed a few of these items on my list. Could we step it up and get on that, please?"

How do you like that? Malcontent mixed with guilt. Sounds like a recipe for lethargy.

Maybe I just need more caffine...

you think you know...

If you've ever watched MuchMusic, I'm guessing you know what follows my line above: "You think you know, but you have no idea." It's the catch phrase of a recently popular television that provided 'exposes' on various popular music artists. The premise was that in spite of the amount of media coverage a celebrity gets, you, the viewer, do not really know anything about said celebrity.

I think that phrase is true for everyone. We think we know so much about other people. Spend enough time with someone and you start to think you've got them figured out. Some of us think we're so good that we can figure out who a person is within the first five minutes of talking to them. And more of us still think we know someone based solely on what other people tell us about them.

But that's not really true, is it?

How many people really know you? And not just superficial knowledge, either - the "deep down I know all your qualities from bad to good including your fantasies and your dreams and your demons" kinda knowledge. I'm guessing that if there's even one person you can say that about, you're doing pretty good.

But even then - do they really, really know you? Core-of-your-soul know you? I'm guessing not. Why am I guessing not? Because I can't honestly say that I've let anyone (even my own husband) know me that thoroughly. Why? Because I still want him to like me. The core-of-my-soul is a lot dirtier than I'd ever like to admit to anyone.

Today's passage is about Jesus going to his hometown and teaching in their synagog. What struck me in this passage was how Jesus' old town-mates started out with some measure of awe about him: "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!"

This awe doesn't last long as they start to put these new developments into their contexts of Jesus as they used to know him: "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?"

It's one of those, "Waaaaiiit a minute. Who the heck do you think you are and where the heck do you get off trying to tell us what's wrong with us? We know you! You're just a carpenter. You're not more special than any of us."

These people thought they knew Jesus, but they really had no idea. They didn't core-of-his-soul know him, that's for sure, and it didn't appear that they even wanted to.

You know what's really funny to me as I think about this? Jesus wants us to core-of-his-soul know him. He laid himself out for us completely. He didn't hold back anything. Even 2000-odd years later, we can still core-of-his-soul know him.

Granted, his soul is a whole lot cleaner than mine. In fact, his soul is so clean, it's blinding in its perfection.

And yet... God completely and utterly dirtied Jesus' perfect soul so that my soul - your soul - could be whiter than snow.

That never ceases to amaze me.

And frustrate me. I think I'm far more comfortable being dirty than I am being clean. Why? I'm gonna steal a few lines from Michelle Merineau, a girl at Prov, who mused about this:

"I wish God was human. I think it takes a whole lot of humility to accept what Jesus did. Most of the time I like to think that I can be good enough on my own. I hate the fact that I'm not. And I feel somewhat like a jerk when I even think about accepting God's grace. I feel like I'm cheating him or something. I find it a lot easier to believe in karma. But God loves me more than that. That to me is the hardest thing to swallow."

What do you think?