Stuck Between Awful and Awesome

Photo: cutestuff.co

I didn't know this would be the hard part.

It looked so straightforward at first.
I was a sinner. That was plain. The list of my ungodly behaviors was long and shameful. But God is good. He showed my sins to me one by one, as gently as was possible, and guided me out of the dark place where I lived with them. And I learned to leave them behind, step by painful step, and the horizon cleared. I learned how to live in God's light, for the most part within His commands. I changed. A lot.

And God said it was good.

So, here I am. A new person. Walking in a new light, a new life. I look around and relax into it, nodding my head in agreement with what God has done in me, saying "Yeah. Thanks, God. I'm liking this."
I go to church every week.
I'm kind to children and animals and even cranky neighbors.
I mind, for the most part, my words and thoughts.
I help the people God brings into my world.
I concentrate hard on being a good wife and mother.
I try to work to God's glory.
I've found a rhythm to this life. It's become familiar. What I used to be and do is slowing fading into a shadowy past and this version of me has become my new, redeemed normal. 

And that's the problem. It's normal.
My new life is normal and God isn't. God is awesome. He's thrilling, exciting, beyond imagination surprising.
But if something doesn't change soon, I'm going to be stuck here. Rescued from the awful, but not reaching the awesome.

This is what nobody told me when I started on this way--
God doesn't want us to look like redeemed humans.
He wants us to look like Him.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory--2 Corinthians 3:18

Darn. That's hard.
Harder than following commandments. Harder than changing behaviors. Harder than stopping habits and thought patterns.
God doesn't just want me to be the best I can be. He wants me to be like Him.
And, just for the record, I am not at all like God.

And yet.....and yet. I've nowhere else to go. It's either go back to the old me--no longer a viable alternative at this point--or it's more of the same--which is bogging me down--or it's this next thing, this glory, this transformation into something that's not only not me--it's not even human.

Not even human. That's the reason it sounds and feels so strange. God wants me to become more than I've ever seen in me or anyone else. I can never be God. I can never share all of his power or might or perfection, but He does want me to become god-like. He wants me to share His glory.

He created me to be like Him.
And God made man in his own image--Genesis 1:27
He says I can be holy.
Be ye holy as I am holy--Leviticus 19:2
He says that, as His beloved child, I am one with Him.
You are gods--you are all sons of the Most High--Psalm 82:6
He says he can make me perfect.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father.--Matthew 5:48, Nehemiah 2:48

If I am ever to get unstuck, this is where I have to go.
Up. More.
He must become greater, I must become less.--John 3:30
I have to aim for what looks impossible.
I have to go to a place I can never, never reach on my own. 
And maybe that's the point.
The further I go, the more I need His help. Until, finally, we get so close that we are never apart. So close as to be almost indistinguishable.
Yes. I would like that.