Confession: I'm not very good at this whole Christian thing.

Okay...I feel like I should start of this post by saying that I love GOD. I want my life to be about His glory and His kingdom. I believe that I am His child and that I could never fall beyond His love and grace.

That said...

I really suck at being a Christian - or at least in the sense of how I think of Christians. When I think of a Christian, I think of someone who:

1. goes to church a lot.
2. is really happy all the time.
3. talks about "what the LORD is doing in their life" a lot.
4. wears cute clothes that are modest, preferably from Old Navy or Gap.
5. always has some nice Christian radio station playing in their car.
6. owns (and wears) quite a few Christian t-shirts and other Jesus memorabilia.
7. always has some catchy phrase about Jesus for every situation.
8. attends numerous Bible studies.
9. likes to have "heart to hearts" as often as possible.
10. never says or does anything that might bother other people.

I go to a Christian college. I went to a Christian high school. I know a lot of people like this. Most of my friends fit this description perfectly. At one point in my life I think I might have fit this description perfectly. Here's the deal though...I'm tired of all that stuff. Because while all of that can be good in the right set of circumstances, for me it's just become a bunch of stuff. It's meaningless to me.

I miss Jesus. I feel like somehow I'd gotten to a point where all of that stuff covered up the cross. I got so caught up in always saying and doing and wearing the "right" thing (whatever that means...) that I forgot about GOD.

And that's where my problems all seem to lie.

I read this little book that said some big things the other day. It's by Max Lucado and it's called Turn. It's actually kind of a call for America to repent and turn back to GOD, but I read it more as a call for me to repent and turn back to GOD. At one point Max talks about how GOD wants us

• to turn from self-promotion to GOD-promotion.
• to turn from self-reliance to GOD-dependence
• to turn from self-direction to GOD-direction
• to turn from self-service to repentance

Here's the thing: I've always treated religion as a means of getting what I want. I've spent my whole life trying to adhere to certain standards (that came mostly from other Christians, not even from the Bible) so that GOD will bless me and make me happy. But as I read this book, I realized that GOD doesn't exist to bless me. I exist to bless GOD. That concept makes obedience seem (I'd like to say radically, but honestly, I'm tired of "radical" Christians) extremely different from what I had originally thought.

But once I realized that I started to feel like a failure...

I'm not a very obedient person. I like to get my way and the older I get the easier it is for me to put GOD on a shelf while I do my own thing. And this makes me sad, because I want to bless GOD. I want to make Him happy. I often feel hopeless because I don't think I'll ever be good enough for GOD.

Here's what Max had to say about those thoughts, "We see Satan poised to claim victory. We feel something near despair as we...make turn after wrong turn, wrong move after wrong move. But in the darkest moment GOD whispers, 'I have good news for you. He hasn't won yet.' GOD gets the final move and we can urge Him to take it."

I think that in the end, it will be okay that I think most Christian music is annoying and that I have a very low tolerance for Christian novels. I think it will be okay that I wear my Christian t-shirts to color my hair in and that I change the channel when Christian talk shows come on. I doubt that GOD will be bothered with all of that stuff. In the end, I hope that He looks at my life and is proud that I gave Him everything - from my perfectionist tendencies to my love of writing to the bad habits and sins that I keep hidden away in the dusty corners of my life. I hope that He will be proud of all the times I have prayed one simple prayer, "GOD I can't do this. You have to do it for me."