Me? Not so nice...

Mark 2:17
Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

A few days ago I had a discussion with a guy who confessed to me that he "wasn't a very nice person".  My first reaction, of course, was to do away with his insecurities and affirm to him what a nice person I thought he really was.  He went on to explain some of his struggles and the areas in his life that needed work.

Days afterward, I found myself thinking of this interaction.  It's funny how quickly we try to make people feel better.  It's amazing how fast I found myself trying to validate him- ironically, by invalidating what he was saying to me.  It's as though we want others to feel "well" rather than simply allow them to face some of the blemishes in their lives that may truly need to be worked out.

In a way, I envy people like him....because at the end of the day it's the ones who can confess their mistakes and weaknesses that are the ones who have already began walking the road toward help and healing.  It's the ones who can boldly declare their flaws and be REAL who will find the way to salvation. 

I think we could all use a dose of realness in our lives.  A sense of coming forward with who we really are- whether we like it or not, and whether others will like it or not.  It's time we begin to take off the mask of who we believe we should be- and face ourselves as we are.

Many times as Christians we forget that we were the sick ones.  We forget the lives that we have come from and the things that we have left behind.  We forget that we are still traveling on this road of life, having not yet reached perfection but striving toward it day by day by day...until we meet Perfection Itself. 

It's this sense of forgetful pride that can hinder our growth.  It can allow the worm of apathy to make a home in our hearts.  But more dangerously, it can begin to cause a rift between our souls and the Great Healer.  The Healer who came for the sick...

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  May we all have the courage to face our sickness...may we open our eyes to the parts that need healing...and may we constantly find ourselves at the feet of our Great Healer.