[As always- I am a hypocrite trying to figure out how live for God. "Trying" is the operative word there...]
“Tyler, what did you do?”
“Nothing…” Eyes facing the floor, hands held behind my back and feet fidgeting…
The stern, knowing, and still loving voice repeats the question. More fidgeting on my part, still no eye contact, and finally the admission: that the broken glass of milk on the floor was my fault.
That is how I dealt with screwing up when I was little and my parents approached me about it. I’m pretty sure almost every kid was that way too. We knew we were bad, we knew what we did may get us sent to our room, we couldn’t hide our guilt, but we tried nonetheless. I’m so glad I deal with my problems in a more adult way now… Right?
Well, here I sit knowing full well the things I have done out of total selfishness. And what do I do? I look down. I fidget. I can’t hide my mistakes, but I can’t bear to deal with them either. So I try to avoid thinking about them. And then I try to avoid thinking about God.
Here I am, wishing I could just ignore God, ignore the fact that I am forgiven and blessed just so that I don’t have to look Him in the eye and tell Him what I did wrong. And here I am acknowledging the fact that I messed up and I am wrong but I am forgiven… if I will just look Him in the eye, admit my mistake, and apologize. But I still can’t. I am still five-year-old Tyler and despite the fact that my Father knows what I did and will not stop loving me, I just can’t look up. I haven’t been able to for days.
I’m a little boy in the corner with his hands over his eyes not wanting to face the broken glass of milk. So I turn “invisible” despite the fact that it is really just a glass of milk. If I own up to it, everything will be fine – the floor gets cleaned and no one gets cut on the shards. But if I don’t own up do it then I get in bigger trouble. Bigger trouble for avoiding it, lying about it, or maybe someone will even get hurt because I am too afraid. But what am I afraid of? The possibility that I have finally gone too far and my parents will be angry, truly angry at me for literally spilt milk.
Sounds a bit ridiculous right? But it is what I do every day. Instead of just facing my mistakes, I delve into my escapes. Friends, work, tv, video games, and so on will all distract me enough that I don’t have to go to God with my mistakes. And then they build up. So I distract myself more. And it becomes a cycle. Why?
When I was little and I got scared or nervous, I would close my eyes – if I can’t see you then you can’t see me, right? Because really, if I can’t see God maybe He can’t see me; if I keep distracting myself maybe He will be distracted too?
And it totally works… Just like our parents fell for that every time… Just like our avoiding eye contact really let us get away with lying to them… right? Okay, not so much…
What is funny is that when I was little and caught in those situations, I always wanted to tell my parents what I did wrong. I was just so afraid of the consequences. And here I am with God, in the same situation. Clearly I can hide from the omniscient, omnipotent Creator. And clearly if I tell Him what I did He will, despite His ultimate sacrifice, refuse to forgive me, hate me, and then ignore my existence.
It is funny how my mistakes become an insane cycle. I sin and then I avoid God because I am ashamed and afraid. So I sin more to avoid God, which makes me more ashamed and more afraid. And so on. When this entire time He is just sitting there as an eternally patient parent waiting for me to just look Him in the eye, say “Abba it’s my fault, I spilt the milk and I’m sorry.”
And what will He do? Well my guess is He will do what any other parent would do. Say simply “Son, its just a glass of milk! I still love you! It’s already taken care of.” And then here is the part that really hurts me because of my answer. He would ask “but why were you afraid to tell me?”
Because I am ashamed. That is why. And because maybe if I ignore my mistakes, then you will do… Maybe if I avoid you, you will ignore my screw-ups.
Because if I can’t see you then you can’t see me… right?
All this over a glass of spilt milk…
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