Sit still and listen to me

As I sat across from my friend Bob last week, I couldn't help but be captivated by the way he spoke of his twelve year old son, Trey. Bob is coaching Trey's sixth grade basketball team this spring, and as Bob began to talk of Trey, I imagined a conversation full of Trey's stats and brilliant plays. But never once did Bob say how many points Trey had scored, steals that he had made, or incredible defensive stops that he had been a part of. Rather he talked endlessly of Trey's compassion for his teammates, his longing for team unity, and his enthusiasm around the game. And I've seen Trey play; he definitely has stats worth reporting. However, that wasn't what had his father talking.

My conversation with Bob sent my heart wandering; thinking about how my Father, how God must talk about me. That though He has called me to go and to serve He isn't rattling off statistics of how many times I prayed this week, how many hours I spent volunteering at the junior high school, or how many kids were at my small group on Monday night. Rather, He takes joy in who I am. Captivated not by what I am doing, but what I am being, by who He created me to be.

For someone who can hardly sit still without feeling completely and utterly useless, this is the last thing I want to hear. And it sounds obvious when I say it to myself, that the number of kids I take to camp, my grade point average, or how complex of an order I can place when at Starbucks, well, doesn't matter. It doesn't make me more important and it doesn't mean that God loves me anymore or any less. What matters is Christ's love flowing through my very being. I recently read this quote somewhere, "I can still be when I can do nothing." I read over it quickly, but something about it made me go back. And I read it again and again, trying to convince myself that it is true. And as I was doing all this convincing I couldn't help but think about how I am constantly trying to convince God that He should save me, that I should be loved by Him when He already has, when He already is. I find myself caught in this mentality that I am worth something because I do something, while the Lord longs for me to know that I am worth something just by being who He made me to be.

The junior high kids that I spend my time with are in a constant search to answer the question of, "Who am I?" And in a similar way, I found myself in a place of answering the question of who I am by listing all of the things that I do. In Titus 3:5, it says:

"He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."