I was jogging through my hood not too long ago. It was beautiful – not a cloud in the sky. It was the kind of temperature that didn’t feel like temperature—neither hot or cold—just right. The birds were chirping, there was a slight breeze out of the northeast (made that up—but it sounded good didn’t it?), and I was in a zone…one of those jogs that feels effortless—like I was floating or something…anyway, enough with the cheesy intro…
Fun Fact: Bermuda grass in North Carolina hibernates in the winter and is very brown and dead looking…
As I rounded the bend and gazed at the horizon ahead of me, something odd caught my eye…
Very green grass. I mean very very green grass…
I increased my speed to gain a closer look—and, as I approach the lawn, I notice green paint blotches on the sidewalk. Someone had been so fed up with the brown and dead look, that they took it upon themselves to paint their front lawn green!! I have this image of them all incognito in the middle of the night carefully painting their lawn—like no one would notice it in broad daylight! Of course, it seemed he used up so much paint for the front yard that he didn’t have enough for the backyard. It was still brown.
We all have painted green lawns don’t we? We do whatever we can to cover up the brown in our lives. But we spend so much time making sure our front lawn is green, that we run out of energy and paint for our back lawn – what’s going on in the inside…
We live in a culture that is obsessed with green lawns, don’t we? We live in a culture that believes you CAN judge a book by its cover. It’s no wonder we spend enormous amounts of money on our curb appeal. We are defined by how we look on the outside. No wonder there is so much obsession with body image, so much obsession with the latest style, so much obsession with the bigger home, the nicer car, and the most expensive plastic surgery.
We have fallen into the lie that to matter more, we need to look better. But the problem is, below the surface and without the paint, we are brown. We have hurts, struggles, pain, doubts, fears, sadness, anger, and confusion in our lives. This is human.
God knows we have brown grass, yet He loves us the same.
With God, we have nothing to hide…
With God, we don’t have to try to be someone we are not…
Here’s the thing: God wants us to trust Him. Period. When we hear Him ask, “Do you trust me?” we can answer with a resounding and confident “Yes.” Then and only then, will we be able to be like Him. And when, not if, we stumble and fall and break promises, we will still trust His love for us. That there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more or less. You see, God’s all about progress, not perfection. He took care of the ‘perfect’ thing on the cross.
So start with the backyard. Start with the unseen. Start with the heart. Start with the internal and let the external take care of itself.
Stop trying to earn your way to Heaven, and realize that Heaven has come to you.
This is Jesus.