All the New in the World

There are a lot of new things going on in my life right now.

New location: after a lot of consideration/ praying, I have moved to Merced, Ca... to live with my family and be apart of their ministry to college students... which means...

New school: I will now be attending Moody Bible Institute online... hopefully lots of my EBC credits will transfer over and I can continue working towards a degree in Biblical Studies... oh, also...

New Status: I am now happily courting an amazing best friend of mine, Kyle Kurth. He has shown me so much grace in the last month (ok well... over the course of all our friendship... but in a new and huge way this last month...) which God has used to lead me to the next new in my life...

New Realization: Grace-in-my-face. I am very hard on myself... always. I am a perfectionist who can never reach my own standards. I create them not only for myself, but for others, situations and anything my mind tends to wander towards. I have expectations, ideals, and they all revolve around my performance, abilities or reactions... which usually always leaves me feeling like a failure. Its pretty hard to admit, but, I try to do everything, all of the above and more, on my own strength. Not only do I desperately try to control my own reactions and emotions, I also tend to try to control my relationship with God and others based on my ability to be a certain person or fill a particular role in the relationship.

Let me explain: if I have a clearly defined role in a relationship of any kind, I have no problem rising to whatever the situation demands to fulfill it as best I can. But when I am in a relationship where I am not clearly "needed," not the leader, not the one pouring into, giving advice, supporting... I tend to collapse.

What does this have to do with grace?
Everything.

In my relationship with God, my biggest hang up tends to be my frustration with being unable to understand Him. You laugh, and we both know its impossible, but there is something inside of me that refuses to give up the notion that if I simply try a little harder, I will finally find the peace of understanding. ( Woa! Time out, you say! Emily, didn't you mean the peace that surpasses understanding? Me: "But that does make sense to me!!" You (and God chimes in on this), so, everyone together now... "THAT'S THE POINT!!" Me: 'o' )

Yep. I still don't get it.

My role in my relationship with God is not clearly defined as anything other than I am to believe Jesus came and payed the penalty for my sin, accept His grace, and live in obedience to His commands because He loves me and His commands offer blessing.

Simple enough right?
False. Well, for me anyway...

The fact that I cannot understand God means I cannot get to the bottom of who He is, and figure out who I should be to please Him (through my actions and words). He doesn't want that, from what I read in the Bible. He wants my heart, and the only way to give it to Him is for me to accept His grace.

But, the catch is.... I don't get to do anything in order to earn it. In fact, I don't even get to understand it. "SIGH!!"

Also, there is nothing I can do to please Him, because He lives in the state of being pleased.... God doesn't need me. Shocker... I know. (You would think after all this time I would already know that...)

As casually as I present this, its really hard to me to actually accept. It means I have to completely trust God... I can't depend on myself. I cannot depend on my understanding. I can't even depend on my abilities to please people, or encourage them, just so I can feel needed. No, the simple truth is that He did this because He wanted to display His love. That is so crazy to me, and, for some reason, really, really hard to accept. Why? Maybe because grace is a beauty that extends my ability to produce, replicate, understand or contain... and so, I am intimidated and feel the desire to run away.

Even in my relationship with Kyle... he is so beyond sweet and compassionate to me, showing me grace beyond what I could ever dream... and...yet, I find that my instinct is to diminish myself, find my faults, and run away. I think I am not good enough for him, that I will only slow him down... I am nothing but an illusion of greatness to him, and once he sees the real me, if he ever does.... i will just exhaust him. He has told me over and over again of his tender care for me and proven his love toward me... yet something still stands in the way.

I think its the same something that keeps me from accepting the grace of God.

Right now, this is a list of a few parts of that something...
~Fear
~Doubt/ not enough faith
~Anger
~Frustration
~Lack of understanding
~Memories of Pain
~Desire for control
~The nature of grace

These are the punches I throw at my savior as He offers me grace... these are the obstacles preventing me from trusting Him right now.

The nature of grace is that I do not deserve it... which is the very reason I think I should not receive it...

What about you?

What keeps you from accepting grace?