Shades of Grey...

One of the most raw things one can do as a created being is to be completely real, absurdly honest.  To just expose the truth with no superficial layers, eliminating the sugarcoating that we have become so immune to applying.  Something happens when you are honest, and I mean honest to the deepest part of who you are.  There is a danger there in that place that can sting like the raw flesh of an open wound.  The vulnerability that one feels can be so real that it makes you want to go and sew some fig leaves together to cover it all up.  But there's also a deep beauty in this place, a fountain of freedom that flows from the innermost part.  There is a big chunk of this picturesque place that we seem to miss all of the time.  The truth is that we may try and hide from ourselves, but we can never hide from God Almighty.  He knew that Adam and Eve were naked before they even hid.  But it wasn't so much a matter of their physical being as much as it was their heart.  When you blatantly sin against God the Father, you run and hide.  But our sin and absolute disobedience does not prevent Him from walking in the cool of the day seeking fellowship with the very ones whom He created in His own image.  Is hide and seek really possible with the One who knows all?  So it is here in these next few moments that I will dare to enter into that place that makes me squirm with conviction and ushers me to my knees in repentance before a holy God...

Grey.  It's just an choice in the Crayola box, perhaps an option in your wardrobe.  It's the color of the sky on a rainy day, perhaps an artistic shade of emotion after a unseemingly joyful day.  I have a question that has been burning within me the last few weeks, and I can't seem to shake it.  What happens when grey enters our lives as followers of Jesus Christ, when grey becomes a normalacy within the walls of the church?  I know one thing to be true; grey will never usher in revival.  Grey will never accompany true intimacy with a holy God.  Grey will never expedite the setting apart of Christians as we are commanded in Scripture to be.  Grey will never loose the chains of the drug addict or release the chains of those in bondage.  Grey is like a cancer of the church, slowly deteriorating one member at a time until it leads to an absolute death of epidemic proportions.

Any child would be able to tell you that grey can be made when combining black and white.  Black represents the very things of the world and the sin that so easily entangles it, the very things that we are to hate.  Please notice I said things and not people.  White represents the truth, the pure things of the Lord, the things that we are told to think upon.  We welcome grey into our theological circles of religious snobs when we combine the two, when we take the secular things of the world and try to christianize them.  For instance, some might say that it is not wrong to drink, but we should never get drunk.  Is that true?  What in alcolhol represents Jesus Christ?  Does it usher us into the presence of the holy One?  This is just one minor example, and there are countless others.

With regards to living life as a follower of Jesus, it is either black or white.  There is no grey, grey is not an option for the one who is radically commited to Jesus.  God even says that He would rather people be either hot or cold, for lukewarm ones will be spit out of His mouth.  It's interesting how He gives cold as an option and not lukewarm.  It's interesting how black is an option, not grey.  Is it me or have we created our own little universe with our precious little rules and adaptations?  Are we not just the dust of the earth?  Have we entertained some sort of role reversal in our fantasy land with God?  For me, the truth is yes.  I have allowed the grey to seep beyond the Crayola box and into my heart.

I have not met the cross and the pure and spotless Jesus on that cross face to face.  I have no idea what grace truly is, I will never understand the absolute ugly beauty of the cross.  Jesus Christ was slaughtered like a lamb on my behalf.  He was beaten beyond recognition for my sins.  He endured the worst possible punishment even though He had never commited one wrong, not one.  He was obedient to death and death upon a cross to save my soul from an eternal habitation in hell.  Oh whether or not I ever really get this does not change the magnitude of that sacrifice.  Jesus would have still followed through even if everyone rejected Him forever.

But rather than eternally embracing the cross and allowing it's splinters to pierce my hardened heart, I have chosen to momentarily embrace this thing called grace and foolishly put it in the garage sale pile.  Oh you know what that pile is like:  It was once something used and of value and maybe even of great treasure, but it's been used up and tossed out and maybe someone else can use it and pay for it.  Grace can never be cheapened, but we can live in such a way that makes this a very frightening reality.  Our complacency propels us into a downward spiral of spiritual degrading.  Our making room for mediocrity causes the mouth of God to want to vomit.  Our spiritualizing the things of the world welcomes grey like a long lost friend.

I long for the day when I can look back at who I used to be and be sick to my stomach.  I cry out for the day when the church will rise up and be who it was created to be.  I dream of the day in which the church of Acts is not just something to read about, but is a reality lived out.  I yearn for the day in which complacency and mediocrity make me sick.  I wonder what the world would look like if Christians truly were set apart in every way.  I wonder how it must shatter the heart of the Father when we treat our life with Him as something to do rather than someone to be.  I wonder if God really knew what He was saying when He commanded us to be holy.  Better yet, I wonder if we really knew who was speaking and were really listening when He said, "Be holy because I am holy."
I think Adam and Eve were a bit caught off guard that day in the garden.  Maybe there were some akward moments of what to do and what to say.  I'm finding myself in that place too.  I don't think there is much one can say other than:  "You were right and I was wrong."  But to admit that would mean a removal of the grey, that thing that we worked so hard to create and justify.  Jesus may I not waste one more drop of your precious blood on my little snippets of grey.  Oh that I would see the cross and the sacrifice for what it really was.  I want to see my sin as what it is, the very spikes that were driven into your wrists.  Forgive me oh holy God, for dragging my grey with me to the cross that was covered in red for all of my black that you command to be white...in Jesus name, Amen.