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Teach Me

I like leaving my radio on when I’m not home. Coming home to singing just makes me smile. The right song at the right time can change a whole day.

That happened today.

I came home because I was so tired of school. Just being there was draining me. Seeing the same people I see every Tuesday – I just wanted to run and hide away.

I ran home.

As I walked into my room Matthew West was pleading,
“Show me how to love the unlovable
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible”

My head tilted and I just stared at the numbers on my radio thinking they would help clear out my thoughts, explain the mess in my brain.

I am unlovable.

Maybe not to everyone, but to someone.

There are lots of people that I have to pray to love well, to have patience for, ask forgiveness for bad thoughts. I hadn’t really considered that that person is me to someone else.

Before repentance, that was me to God.

All He could see where my imperfections. My lack of righteousness and holiness. My sin.

Then Jesus blotted that all away. His perfection covers my lacking. His suffering was extended to me as joy.

Jesus made me loveable.

A bit of a shock to articulate the extent of my selfishness.

I complain about so much in others while in the same moment justify myself. Why haven’t I learned that my justification is from heaven not from me?

Why is it such a struggle to selflessly give my love to those around me? Can’t I see how much worse I was than they are now?

I’m longing for perfection in a broken world.

Sometimes I forget how close it really is. A few weeks ago my roommates and I were talking and I gave them one of my sermonettes. It was from 1 Corinthians 13 when Paul writes about now seeing through the glass dimly, but soon all will be seen in full. I told them how sometimes in our dirty glass God takes His hand and wipes out a streak and grace shines through so brightly. Reminders of who He is and of our first love.

That’s what this song was to me today; a light shone through, dirt washed away. Grace made clear.


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