Sometimes I slip. No, not my footing, though that is surely a possibility with all the snow right now. Sometimes I slip on my spiritual journey. Slipping back is probably a better way to describe it. It never happens all at once. It seems to start out small, nothing really to worry about. So I don’t. Steadily that small thing grows, increasing in size until it possesses me and I find that I have slipped, slipped back into an old pattern, an old habit, a dead way of living. A way of thinking or a being that I thought was long gone comes back and grips me. I have slipped, and honestly, I am afraid, afraid that I haven’t just lost my footing but my very relationship with God, and I don’t know how I am going to get it back.

Sound paranoid? Maybe, but I know I am not the only one out there who experiences life in this way. Just yesterday in my own Community Group, we had this very conversation, a conversation about what happens when we slip. Specifically, we chatted about what happens with our relationship with God. So what does happen when we slip? I’ve been doing some thinking, and I have come to the realization that what happens is not what I thought happens.

We all slip. We are following along after Jesus and suddenly we find ourselves having veered off the path. For me, slippage occurs in the form of legalism. I was raised in a strict, fundamentalist environment. It is easy for me to make life all about rules and rituals. If I am not careful, I will find that I am engaging in rituals and practices because they are the “right” thing to do, not because of love and devotion to my Savior. I have slipped. I don’t know about you, but for many of us, the recognition of slippage brings great shame. “How could I have slipped?” “I have been here a thousand times before.” “When am I going to get it?” With shame, come its siblings: guilt and remorse. If we are not careful, their cousin despondency slips in the door. Despondency is the most slippery of them all for it tells us that God is ashamed of us, that He is disappointed in us. It whispers that right now God is very angry, angry with those of us who have slipped, and we had better do something, anything to make God happy again. So we engage in mental self-flagellation, designed to punish ourselves and make God happy again. “We are wretched, wicked people.” “We will never do it again.” “We are so, so sorry.” Sound familiar?

I wish that I could say that this scenario was the exception. I am afraid that it is closer to the rule. We seem to have this idea that God smiles upon us insofar as we are able to behave properly. Slip one little bit and God’s smile turns to a frown. We spend our lives trying to turn that frown upside down. Is this the way it really is? Need we spend our lives in this way? I don’t think so. You see, living like this says a great deal about how we view God, not the way life really is. The God of this approach is a mean and petty God who is concerned with how well we keep the rules. He is looking down on us, expecting us to earn His favor. You know, that isn’t the God we find in scripture. The God revealed in scripture is a gracious and loving God, one who knows we slip, who knows we can’t perform, and so has come down to live in our place, to empower us to live as we cannot live. God is one who draws near to those who slip, bringing forgiveness and healing. This is the God we see in the person of Jesus.

So if this is God, then where did I get my other ideas about God? You know, I don’t have the answer to that question other than the God I have in my mind, the one that is petty and mean looks a lot more like me than the God I see revealed in Jesus. Here is what I do know. I know that as I journey forward, I am working to see God as He truly is, not as I imagine Him to be. I am learning to see Him as a God who knows that I slip.

A fellow traveler,

Blake
Spiritual Formation Pastor