I Suck At Relationships: Easter Reflections

"Forever, He is glorified.

Forever, He is lifted high.

Forever, he is risen.

He is alive

He is alive."

- Forever by Kari Jobe

He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

I'm usually a day late and a dollar short, so these Easter reflections are coming to you post-Easter. Bear with me. It might be worth it. :)

I love Easter. I love the celebration of Jesus and his sacrifice for us. I love remembering that he conquered death. I love the anticipation that builds up to that day. I love the Jelly Belly jelly beans I get in my Easter basket every year. 

What's harder to be excited over is Good Friday. 

Granted- there would be no Easter celebration if there wasn't a Good Friday. There would be no forgiveness of sin, and being free to live for God, without the death of Jesus. There would be none of the hope I have without Christ's sacrifice. Easter is only a celebration in light of what happened. I tend to blow right past Good Friday though and focus on Easter. I don't want to dwell on the sacrifice. I want to give it a nice tip of the hat and move on to the joy of eternity with God the risen Christ represents. 

This Good Friday though, was different. As I sat in the service fighting back tears, God was working on my heart, as only he can do. This all will make sense with a bit of backstory...

For those of you who don't know, work has been pretty stressful. If you've had a conversation with me in the past few weeks, you'll hear me talk about how busy I am and just the stress that comes from having all the responsibility for one account almost squarely on mine and my boss's shoulders. Basically I'm overwhelmed and it's been really hard to keep my head afloat. Add to that the fact that life and relationships are complicated? Life's been a struggle. 

So. As I sat in church on Friday, I had the weight of expectations and stress on my shoulders- placed there by no one else but me. As we sang songs about how Christ was murdered on that cross for my sins, something hit me as I gazed at the cross on the wall. 

I suck at relationships. 

I don't say that in an "aww, don't say that, Jackie!" sort of way. I say that in a "wow, serious reality check," sort of way. I take my stress and whatever else is going on in my life and let it affect my life in other areas. My relationships with people suffer, my joy is stolen, and my patience is shot. I look at others through my own experiences and start to see them as less than they are, and see me as more than I ought to. Basically, I in my sin start to think that I was the one who died on that cross for everyone else's happiness. I will suffer so no one else will- which is absolutely ridiculous. John Piper puts it well: "Every sin flows from the failure to treasure the glory of God above all things." The glory of God is the cross of Christ. 

God gently reminded me on Friday that my perspective is wrong. I should see my life, and those around me through the lens of the cross. If I shift my perspective to looking at life, circumstances, and people through the ultimate display of sacrifice and love, how much better will I, in turn, love people? When I begin to treasure the cross of Christ and take the focus off me and my problems, I start to see people how God see's them- how he saw them thousands of years ago when he hung up on a tree for our sins. I slowly start to see people as more important than myself. 

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die." - Romans 5:6-7

Christ died for the ungodly, yet I can hardly be happy for a friend's relationship, promotion, [insert other thing here], or whatever. Where Christ died on a tree for you and me, I cannot celebrate even little joys with friends or bear with them in their sorrows because I am too hung up on my own troubles. 

Christ did not just die so I can be reminded of how much I suck, though. (PTL, am I right?)

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." -John 3:17

The realization that I "suck" at various things, should drive me towards the cross, and towards repentance and life transformation. It should change the way I view the world, and should make my perspective on things cross-centered.

I am saved through the sacrifice and victory of one. What I fail at, Christ did perfectly, and died so that when God looks at me he doesn't see me and my messed up life, but sees Jesus on the cross in my place. I am washed whiter than snow and God calls me his beloved. I do not love well, but thank God he loves me more than I deserve and more than I will ever know! It's a daily reminder to see others through the cross. Once I start to focus on that, my problems and failures start to become more and more dim as my focus becomes more and more concentrated on Christ and loving others the way he loved me. Praise the Lord for grace and forgiveness and gentle reminders that my life, in all of it's craziness, is but a whisper of an eternity we will spend with Christ. 

Until next time,

Jackie