Last week, I wrote about peace, which I’m learning about at my new job. I called it “Applying for Peace.” This time, I’m talking about “Applying for Righteousness,” or “Right Standing.”
***Hint: Don’t freak out about that word. “Righteousness.” It just means “right standing with God, self, others,
and pretty much the universe in general.”***
So I was talking with my friend Stephany today about this verse, Psalm 139:5-
“You [God] hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me.”
Most of my life, I’ve seen happy-go-lucky people, you know, the ones who make a mistake, go on without changing anything, and then make the same mistake again. They’d laugh and forget and continue on their way.
I partly looked down on them because they would never learn.
But I would partly envy them. Because they seemed so… happy. So free.
Meanwhile, I would beat myself up. Make sure my mistakes instilled fear in me, so I wouldn’t do them again. Because I had to change me.
But if there’s anything I learned this week at my job, it’s that… I can’t change me.
This lady who sits at my coffee shop is a New Ager. She thinks you just need to unlock new chakras to reach nirvana — literally, the “extinguishment of self.” In other words, to overcome your self-ishness, you just need to try harder yourself to get rid of yourself.
I agree with her… in that you must deny yourself and surrender in order to become all you were made to be.
But… the truth is, you can’t do it on your own.
It’s like a snake trying to eat itself until it’s all gone. It just… the math doesn’t work out.
In the same way, you can ask for God to free you from your flesh, your selfishness, but you can’t remove it yourself. You don’t get yourself righteousness.
(And by “righteousness,” I just mean “right standing with God, yourself, others, and the universe as a whole.”)
You can apply for a job, but you don’t get yourself a job. Someone hires you.
You can apply for righteousness, but you don’t get yourself right with God. The Manager of the universe gives it to you.
“You [God] hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me.”
I saw this verse and thought of some stupid pillow.
Haha. It wasn’t very powerful of an analogy to me.
But it also kind of is:
In a pillow, the cotton is “hemmed in,” and it can’t get out.
I guess if my righteousness is pillow stuffing, God is the hem.
God goes before me and behind me.
My past?
It’s covered.
It can’t take me out.
I’m sealed in and tight with God.
In the same way… no matter how many drinks I mess up
or people I piss off
or huge life mistakes I make…
my future is covered.
I’m sealed.
Sealed!
What does that mean?
My righteousness is not about me changing me.
I no longer have to live in the past, regretting my mistakes. AND I no longer have to live in the future.
Wondering if I’m making the right decisions
or going off the path,
missing the very signs
I’m desperately looking for,
playing hide-and-seek with God’s will
because there’s obviously something I’m not seeing…
No.
I’m sealed in.
He goes before me and behind me. Because no matter who I am, that’s who He is.
So I’m free to be me.
Incompetent,
sandwich-burning,
cup-dropping,
beautifully “hemmed in” me.
Let’s just call it job security.
[That’s the end of my 2-part series. Woo!]
Comments and thoughts?
- Am I the only one who feels a persistent guilt for doing stuff wrong?
- If you feel it too… do you think this is how God intends for us to live?
- Is it possible to be in right standing with God and others, even after you’ve wronged them??
