Seen & Known

Recap

Last week we talked about the image of God we bring into prayer. How the picture we hold of Him shapes how we approach Him, and how our circumstances can actually point us towards a truer part of God we haven't leaned on before.

Which image of you shows up?

So if it's worth asking which image of God we're working with, it's also worth turning that question around.

Which image of you shows up to God?

Because I think most of us, if we're honest, show up to God as one of a few versions of ourselves.

There's the polished version. The one trying hard to get it all right, denying there are challenges, or at least not leading with them. There's the version you show to your colleagues or your friends, which is a bit more real, but still edited. And then there's the actual honest version. The one holding all the struggles out, not tidying anything up first.

The version of ourselves we present to God matters because God comes where He is wanted, He didn’t force his way in. So I wonder, are there places you’ve kept from the healing and transforming power of God?

David G. Benner, in his book Surrender to Love, puts it like this: 

The key to spiritual transformation is meeting God in vulnerability. Our natural inclination is to bring the most presentable parts of our self to the encounter with God. But God wants us to bring our whole self to the divine encounter. He wants us to trust him enough to meet Perfect Love in the vulnerability of our shame, weakness, and sin.

The temptation to try harder

I think that's true but I also think it's harder to do than it sounds, because the temptation the moment you hear something like that is that you’ll think: right, okay, each morning I'm going to show up honestly, bring God all my stuff, really lean into the vulnerability. And that's a genuinely good intention. But it unintentionally puts the focus back on you. You have to remember. You have to muster the willpower. You have to figure out how to be better at it.

And that's not actually the invitation.

You’ll have heard me say this before because it’s something I always come back to, when we decide to follow Jesus we don't have to do anything on our own anymore. No more pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, no more relying on our own willpower to fix the parts of us that need fixing. We can invite Jesus into all of it.

I know that and you probably know that, but my first instinct when I see something that needs changing in me is still to try harder.

If I'm struggling with something, I'll resolve to just stop it. If I'm falling back into a pattern I thought I'd dealt with, I'll buckle down and sort it out myself.

We miss so much if we choose to follow Jesus, trust Him with our eternity, and then go straight back to fixing our own lives.

This reminds me of the verse found in Zechariah 4. God has just revealed to Zechariah that the temple will be rebuilt, then He reminds Zechariah what’s needed for that to come to pass. 

Zechariah 4:6 (NIV)

So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.

Not power, the ability of one, not might, the ability of many, but my Spirit, the ability of God.

I realise I can make this sound like we play no role in how we experience change - that isn’t entirely true, we play a role, we position ourselves for transformation - but the vast majority of the process is handled by God.

In fact it’s a promise from Him that we will be transformed.

Romans 8:29 (NLT)

For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

If you follow Jesus, God has promised that you will become like Jesus. That’s the process each of us is experiencing as we walk with Jesus. It doesn’t depend on our ability to become like Jesus, the part we play is deciding to what extent we’ll allow God to change us.

The underlying guilt

They’re great promises, but I think for some of us listening there's a guilt that sits underneath all of this.

A sense that we're not walking with God well enough. That we keep messing up. That if God could really see what's going on in us, he'd be disappointed. And so we manage what He sees and show up as the acceptable version, leading with the good bits and hoping He doesn't look too closely at the rest.

I’m about to say some good news that could sound like bad news if you mishear it. So as I say it, remember God is love, He is endlessly good, and merciful.

Here it is…

He already sees it. Every little bit of it. And He isn't disappointed, He's been waiting for you to invite Him into it.

Psalm 139 says there is nowhere we can go from his presence. He knows when we sit and when we rise, He perceives our thoughts from afar, He is familiar with all our ways. 

You could take that as a warning, or you take it as comfort. You are already fully known. The performance isn't protecting you from anything, He can already see what's behind the curtain, and He isn’t put off by it.

Embodied prayer

My spiritual director led me through an embodied prayer practice recently that helped me understand this a bit more.

I’m not that great at embodied prayer I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

I’m aware that I have the Holy Spirit in me, but whenever I try to connect with God I kind of look externally, somewhere out there. Maybe you’re the same. I can easily forget He dwells in me. Even though Jesus says it in John 15 - remain in me as I remain in you. He abides in us, which means Jesus makes his home in us, as we make our home in Him, what a mystery that is!

I'd always kind of imagined the Holy Spirit dwelling somewhere in my chest, but the practice I was led through involved acknowledging and experiencing the Holy Spirit in each part of my body. I know this may sound a little odd to you, but it was actually a really powerful time.

My director slowly led me through it. Starting with my feet, the Spirit fills there. And then I heard scripture about feet, about being sent, about standing on holy ground. Then up through each part — legs, torso, hands, shoulders, mind.

Genuinely, it was pretty profound to pay attention to how I felt in different parts of my body.

There were parts of myself I'd been keeping out of bounds. Not consciously or deliberately but I realised I'd been doing something like distracting God with my good bits, so He didn’t pay attention to the bad bits. Like here are my hands, look at these. Or here's my voice, or here are my feet. Look over here, not over there. I’d been distracting Him with the parts I was comfortable presenting, so He wouldn't have to look at the parts I wasn't.

Which is a bit ridiculous when you think about it, because He already knows but that's what shame does, it keeps us performing even when there's no point.

And as I let her lead me through each part it was a genuinely healing experience to be completely filled, to stop holding bits back and let God into the places I'd kept off limits without really realising it.

I finished feeling more fully known, which is strange because nothing had changed factually, He knew it all already, but I felt more known, and that was really cool.

Practical honest prayer

So, other than that, what does it look like to practically come to God in an honest way?

I don't think this kind of honest prayer has to be a scheduled, structured, get-it-right kind of thing, I think it happens more in the moments when something's already going wrong.

When you feel exposed or things are messy or when you find yourself in the middle of a moment you wish you weren't in, that's the moment to come to God honestly. 

It could be as simple as: Lord, I'm feeling really overwhelmed right now, would you meet me here. Or: Father God, I'm spiralling, I need your truth to lift my head. Or just: Holy Spirit, I'm confused, would you make my next step obvious.

And when your mind wanders back to the anxiety of the situation, don't shame yourself back to prayer. Just return, say it again, and repeat as necessary.

David G Benner, in another of his great books The Gift of Being Yourself, writes: 

I only know Divine unconditional, radical and reckless love for me when I dare to approach God just as I am. The more I have the courage to meet God in this place of weakness, the more I will know myself to be truly and deeply loved by God.

The parts of you that you've been hiding aren’t the parts that disqualify you from transformation, they’re the parts that desperately need it.

You don't have to perform or arrive having already sorted yourself out. You can show up honestly, in the middle of the mess, and trust that what meets you there is perfect love. Not disappointment, not distance, God’s perfect love.

Question

What parts of yourself are you hiding from God at the moment? Could you bring them to Him?

Prayer

Father, we want to come to you honestly. But sometimes shame, and pain, and disappointment get in the way. We want to be transformed, to look more like Jesus, and we know we can't do that bit ourselves. So help us to bring all of ourselves to you, even the parts we'd rather hide, and trust that what meets us there is perfect love and grace. Thank you that we don't have to do any of it alone. In your precious name Jesus, amen.