For a long time when other Christians would tell me that we can't be "good enough" for God, this always really confused me. Like I said before I thought the point of Christianity was to avoid going to hell and if I couldn't be good enough to do that what was the point? I didn't understand that "not good enough" in this context meant "not as aligned with God as we could be/should be" When I was growing up being told I wasn't "good enough" was always said in conjunction with other things such as " I am ashamed of you" "you are worthless" "no one is going to love you" "I wish you weren't my daughter" (Which is a terrible thing to say to any child but especially an adopted one) and of course "God doesn't want you, you are going to hell"
So I always thought salvation was something we had to earn. God had a clipboard and a pen that he would make checkmarks on, ticks and crosses, tallys, columns and rows and when I died he would add them all up to see if I was good enough but I knew however hard I tried I wouldn't be.
In the house I grew up in I learned that everything had to be paid for, everything, in some way or another, even basic things that parents are supposed to provide like food and medicine, and those basic things, as well as more nebulous things such as affection and nurture could be taken away at any time as a punishment for me not being "good enough." I guess its not surprising that that all bled through into my image, my concept, of God
But in this process of coming back to God, I am talking, thinking, listening, praying, reading, and I realize now that with so many things about Christianity, I got it all backwards. and I think lots of us do, especially those of us that grow up in abusive environments. I've been reading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. It's a bit of a mixed bag but it has been one of the things helping me work this particular tangle out.
The bending of the mind by the powers of this world has twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded book-keeper....Too many Christians are living in the house of fear and not in the house of love (The Ragamuffin Gospel P 19)That was pretty much my image of God, Eventually I pretty much thought, well if I'm never going to be good enough and am going to hell anyway, why not just walk away from Christianity so at least I am not reminded of what a terrible worthless person I am all the time. I didn't understand that it wasn't about what I did but about what God did for me
If there was any idea that God had set us a sort of exam and that we might get good marks by deserving them, that has to be wiped out. If there was any idea of a sort of bargain - any idea that we could perform our side of the contract and thus put God to our debt so that it was up to Him, in mere justice, to perform His side - that has to be wiped out...God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam.(Mere Christianity P142)
And we are not perfect, we are not as good as we could be, we are not as aligned with God as we could be, but that doesn't matter, he wants us now,. The point when we go God and say "Hey it's me, I'm here'" he doesn't care how perfect or not we are, he just wants us to be with him and him with us and if we are truly honest about wanting to align with him everything will work itself out from there
