Ok,  I know I have been a little unoriginal lately and have basically been putting quotes from books on here, but this has to be put out somewhere for everyone to read.

I am reading Larry Crab’s Inside Out right now and it is rocking my world. So here is a small section from the first chapter that I think is crucial:

“Just a quick glance beneath the surface of our life makes it clear that more is going on than loving God and loving others. It requires only a moment of self reflection to realize that, no matter how much we may have already changed, we still have a long way to go. We know things are not as they should be. Something is wrong.

Ever since God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, we have lived in an unnatural environment, a world in which we were not designed to live. We were built to enjoy a garden without weeds, relationships without friction, fellowship without distance. But something is wrong, and we know it, both within our world and within ourselves. Deep inside we sense we’re out of the nest, always ending the day in a motel room, never at home. When we’re honest, we see we handle our discomfort by keeping our distance from people, responding more to our fears than to another’s desire for love.

We wish we were better than we are, but we’re not. And that realization brings shame, a desire to hide, to avoid real contact, to present to others only that part of us we think will be well received. We want to hide the rest- not because we desire to avoid offending others with our ugly side, but because we fear their rejection. We live for the purpose of self protection, clinging to whatever brings happiness and security. The effect is a discouraging distance between ourselves and the people we long to be close to. The quality of our life diminishes.”

Well doesn’t that make you want to jump right out of bed in the morning?! As hard as some of these things are to face, its necessary if we are to be honest and real with ourselves, with God and with a lost world that needs to see that Jesus really changes people. When we go to the hard places in us and stop pretending that we are fine we create an opportunity for God to begin to transform us by his grace. If it really is Jesus that we have then we will change for it is his nature to reconcile us to God.