Keeping it Real.

 

 

I admire the bloggers that have the guts to post “Keeping It Real” photos. I honestly do. I appreciate that they are willing to admit the fact that they aren’t perfect. That they have days full of dirty dishes, and screaming babies, and cluttered floors. I think that the fact that they are willing to share their shortcomings with the world, so that we know they’re human too, and that we are encouraged on our dirty days, is laudable.

But nobody shows us their most real days. You know which days I mean. The days when we wake up tired, and angry, and foul, and right-down-to-the-core rotten. The days when we have pure, putrid, stinking hate in our hearts. When we hate the day, and the job, and the very air we’re breathing. The house may be sparkling, the children may be darling, the day may be blue, but we are still filthy inside.

We don’t share those days. We don’t keep those days real. Because on those days, we don’t want to be seen. We want to crawl away into our little hole and hide from the light of day. We hide, because we know. We know the depths of the ugliness still rooted in our hearts. We see without a doubt the very sin that brought Christ to the cross, and we cling to it with all our meager might. These are the most real, the dirtiest of days.

God sees those days. We may hide it from others behind cheery smiles and empty platitudes and good deeds, but He sees us down in the pit of our hearts, relishing in the muck and the mire of self-love and self-indulgence and self-pity.

He sees our wretched sin, and He condemns us to hell for it. For our selfishness isn’t just an annoyance to others, or inconvenience for us, or a bump in the road to holiness, but it is damnable blasphemy against our holy God Himself.

We carefully avoid the Bible on those days, for the Word of God brings condemnation. We avoid Christian fellowship on those days, for they point us to the Word of God. We avoid letting our putrescence show to the world, for then our Christian brethren would seek us out. Instead, we cover our sickness with a spotless veil of piety, and avoid anything that would root it out.

But, thank God, He is gracious. He does not leave us to rot in our depths of despair, though His holiness allows it. He gives us a way out, even in our darkest of dirty days. He doesn’t let us try to worm our own way out, but sends His precious Son, Who has not a spot on His shining soul, to plunge His holy hands into the filth that surrounds us. He sends His Son to pull us onto His back and out of the muck. He washes the filth from our being with His priceless blood, and presents us to His Father as clean, holy, worthy.

Thank God, that on our truly dirty days He does not abandon us.

Just, you know, keepin’ it real