What Do I Deserve?

What do I deserve?

According to the faith tradition that formed me, I deserve death. I’m a terrible, rotten, no good, sinner. I’m depraved and a wretch, and God can’t tolerate my existence as I am, so God will punish me… forever. This is my story, this is my song… In this story, God created an escape clause through Jesus. God wanted… no, God needed blood, so God took out ‘his’ wrath on Jesus. Jesus took my punishment for me because God loves me. In a nutshell, that’s the story that formed me, and people called it good news. This story lingers in my body, even though I don’t really believe it anymore. It lingers in the voice of shame and speaks its lies about who I am. In this story, I am bound up by guilt, trying to please a God who can’t be pleased and trying to satisfy a debt I can never repay. I was told, and fearfully believed, that this was a love story, but it sure never felt that way. I’m not sure love can live under constant threat. I was also taught that love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. Is that the same love authored by a God who is always in need of vengeance and blood? Is this the same love that formed the old story I’ve told myself for much of my life? I don’t think it is, so I’m writing a new story in the second half of my life, formed by LOVE without threats and conditions… love that is patient, kind, hope-filled, truth-filled, generous, etc. And it feels good. It feels right and different. I feel more like myself. I feel more free… not needing to prove myself or resign myself to how “unworthy” I am. God, who IS LOVE, clearly thinks I’m worth something, so I’m writing a new story from the one that first shaped me. I’m writing as one formed by and deserving of love… and as one who looks at my neighbor in the same light.

If I look through the lens of the story you I’m writing with my life now, the word “deserve” starts to lose its teeth. In the old story, “deserve” was a threat. In the new story, I don’t “deserve” love because I earned it or because a debt was paid; I “deserve” love simply because I exist and am created by Love itself.

I deserve:

• To breathe without wondering if God is frustrated with my existence.

• To fail without fearing that the “escape clause” has been revoked.

• To look in the mirror and see a reflection of the Divine, not a “rotten sinner” barely covered by a coat of paint.

• To extend this same grace to my neighbor, seeing them not as a project to be saved, but as a masterpiece to be celebrated.

In the new story, the goal is connection.

It is”Image of God-Focused” instead of “Sin-Focused”. When a person tells me they are “rotten” or “broken,” I get to look past the debris and see the un-ruined image of God within them. I’m not “fixing” a wretch; I’m reminding a masterpiece of its origin.

In my second-half-of-life story, silence becomes like a “cozy mystery”—a space where God’s love doesn’t need words to be present. I can sit in the dark with someone (or myself) without feeling the need to “light a match” of shallow platitudes.