In Easter

Just as I wrote about in my last post, recently I've been learning a lot about what it means to be not enough.

And as I headed home for Easter weekend, I fell under the illusion (as I have a tendency to do) that God is chained to the places that I've encountered Him.

So often I can come into His presence with greater ease when it's a familiar place that when entered brings back memories of lessons in the past that He's taught me.

As a result, when I switch places, I have to go through the whole mental game of reminding myself that He is with me everywhere I go.

The weekend was great. But as I entered church on Easter Sunday morning, I was feeling dimly lit, as if I hadn't encountered God the way that I wanted to during this season. As if I couldn't feel Him.

But as the service went by, it was if the common thread of His lessons to me recently was whispered in my head over and over again.

Easter is all about not being enough. 

The reason He came? The reason He died?

I am not enough. But He is.

There is no way that I can face a holy God with anything in my hands that would convince Him to let me near His perfectness.

I am filth from the inside out, coated in the molasses texture of sins that I have deluded myself are not really that bad.

Coming into His presence while those drip off of me and pollute the white halls of His holiness?

Not going to happen.

And so He sent His Son. The only One who was enough.

That One who is everything, became nothing so that I might become whole.

And as we dyed Easter eggs, turning them from white to scribbled with hope,

I realized afresh how He takes one life and not only justifies (declares not guilty),

but in His good will, chooses to sanctify that life.

Taking the little moments of each day, the trials and the heartache, the joys and delights,

And crafts each on of us into something that He delights in.

Something that brings Him glory.

I am not enough. I could never do this on my own.

But He can. And He does.

And that's why there's Easter.