Finding Jesus in the Kitchen

In the past three weeks I’ve had meltdowns in three different kitchens, none of which are my own. Oh yes, this is thriving.

Today, as I lay on my back and cried to the ceiling, I told God how I felt like a failure. How I constantly worried about disappointing and hurting the people I love. It terrifies me and I never feel like I’m doing it right. Ever. I don’t know how to do this. Whatever “this” is. I think I’m failing at it. I mean, do most people cry this much?

It most definitely has something to do with my walk with God. The past month or so my devotions, prayer, worship, the whole thing, has just been difficult. And I feel like I’m failing God, too. Like He died on the cross for me and I can’t get up an extra hour to talk to Him? But you know what the real issue is? It’s not that I can’t get up. It’s that I don’t want to. Like someone flipped a switch and rather than crave Jesus like I used to and like I wish I did, I feel half hearted and tired and bored with my walk. That’s really hard to write, to be honest.

I want to want Jesus, but lately I just haven’t. And I absolutely hate that.

And I can go through the motions, but something is missing. I read and pray but all the while feeling totally passive and lackadaisical. And not wanting to be sitting there, talking to God. Lately I’ve had to keep my phone out of the room, because what starts as finding worship music to listen to while studying the Word turns into scrolling through Instagram when I should be spending time with my Creator.

My relationships just suck, because when my relationship with Jesus sucks, I really can’t do anything. I’m always missing the mark and falling short. But you know, when my relationship with Jesus is good, I don’t think I’m actually that much better. I don’t magically figure out how to add another day to the week to spend with my family, or suddenly learn how to love the people I can’t stand. It’s just that when my relationship with Jesus is good, failing isn’t so terrible. In fact, it’s totally okay to be a failure when I’m with Jesus. He doesn’t ask me to be perfect and to know what I’m doing. He doesn’t even tell me what the “this” is. And I’m not even sure He keeps me from collapsing onto a kitchen floor and sobbing. Jesus just comes over and lies down next to me and takes my hand and says, “Hey, I know you’re screwing up. But I’m not asking you to do this right. I’m asking you to surrender each day to me and give me all you’ve got and at the end of every day, even when you’ve failed miserably, to trust that I’ve got you covered so that the next day you can wake up and do it all over again.” Because you and I are not going to do this right. Not ever. We’re lost and blind sheep bumbling around.

And then, miraculously, when we keep pursuing Jesus, He starts to change that stuff in us. He starts to make us more like Him. And even though you and I are still messing up big time, the Holy Spirit is doing His thing and making us better, bit by bit. So that love and joy and hope and peace don’t seem so far off. So that even when we find ourselves on the kitchen floor, we’ve made progress. The darkness doesn’t feel so heavy and suffocating because we’re looking more and more like the Light.

We just need Jesus. Even if we don’t really want Him some days.

I’ve always been a failure. I can put on a good face, get the A, and keep my cool pretty well when I really, really have to… but I’m still a failure. Thankfully, because of the Cross, I can say I’m Jesus’s failure. And when I’m by His side, following my Shepherd who loves me even if I’m an idiot, life is better. And I know that He’s making me into less of a failure.

Because this isn’t who we were supposed to be. We were never supposed to be crying in kitchens and cars and high school bathrooms and behind closed doors. This isn’t the life we should have had. But we choose sin over Jesus and darkness over Light and we shattered everything we could have had. We made the wrong choice and the only way to even begin getting back on track is to make the right choice. The only hope is to pick Jesus. Even if we don’t feel like it. Even if it’s painful and difficult and exhausting. Jesus is it. Everything else falls away. It’s just Him. You and I? We need Him.

I wrote all that last night. And this morning, I still don’t feel like doing my devotions. It still feels hard. I say this because I think it’s important for us to remember that the Christian walk is a messy trail littered with broken people who are still searching for forgiveness and still having to confess their sins. Christians should be the most humble and broken people in the world because we actually see how far from God Almighty we really are. We know what we’re supposed to be, we’ve seen and studied Jesus, the Lamb, and then we look at ourselves and should be driven crazy by just how messed up we are.

But we should also be the most hopeful people in the world because we actually see how gracious and loving and forgiving our God is that every time we find ourselves falling to pieces and running into trees and tripping over stones because we’ve chosen to leave the right path, our Jesus, the Perfecter of our faith, finds us. He hunts us down in the dark wilderness of our sin and finds us stuck in deep, dark pits or flat on our faces and He picks us up leads us back to the right way. He doesn’t leave us. Ever.

And with Jesus, we’re going to be okay. He will make us okay. He is making us more like Him.

Honestly, it’s really hard to jump back into a relationship with Him once we’ve dropped it. At least it is for me. I really drag my feet over it. But I’m starting small. Waking up and just opening the Bible, not really back into deep study again, but just reading through the Old Testament. And praying more, rather than letting my thoughts wander about. It’s still difficult and I feel like it’s forced, but we have a gracious Savior who doesn’t walk away from us. And we really, really need Him. Every day, more and more, whether we realize we need Him or not. Our relationship with Jesus is one of the most difficult things to maintain, I think. But it’s by far the most important, and we are constantly in jeopardy of walking away from Him. So even when we don’t feel like it, we just gotta keep chasing Jesus, and know that He is forever and always reaching out to us.