Too Much Caffeine

Unbeknownst to me, as usual, Spring has sprung on me the great gift of daylight savings time on very short notice. Like the Super Bowl, bills, and inconvenient phone calls; I am never aware that daylight savings time is approaching. I'm just living my life when it suddenly comes knocking at my door. Annoyingly for me, it always comes between Saturday night and Sunday morning and Sundays tend to be the day of the week that I have to wake up the earliest. Abused and downtrodden, I have to drag my sorry self out of bed while it's too dark outside and find it in me to at least fake being filled with the love of Christ at what I consider to be an ungodly hour. This year, I have been fortunate enough to be filled with an energy drink upon closing time at work, having only just discovered that I would have one hour less to roll out of bed and get to church. So, somehow feeling nowhere near tired and yet simultaneously exhausted, I started a blog post without the faintest clue what it is going to be about. I might not even finish this. There's actually a strong chance that this'll be an incomplete draft that never gets posted.

But I guess I do have something to write about. Now that I think about writing something, not completing it, and then proceeding to not post it, I remembered a Facebook status that I wrote and didn't post right before work today. It was about hypocrisy. 

Hypocrisy is a weird subject. When I get on the internet, I see it everywhere. I am especially aware of it when people start talking about politics, or at least reposting images someone else made about politics (which may or may not be accurate). Most of the time, I don't like talking politics because I start to get really hot under the collar about it. I simply cannot withstand the level of emotion that rises inside me when we start talking about politics and I hear well-meaning people express opinions that are COMPLETELY WRONG!!! I will not mention these hot-button issues, but if you're ever talking to me, you will know when we've hit one because you will see me fight to stay calm over a controversial issue that I see as black-and-white. And what bothers me the most when I think about politics is hypocrisy. Our government is filled with corrupt, over-fed hypocrites. But to be fair, I think every government is filled with those kinds of people. It's not that those are the kind of people who flock to those positions, at least I don't think that's the case. I solemnly believe that a career in politics turns people that way. So hearing about this garbage REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS!

But what makes this all hard for me is how guilty I know that I am of the very same sin that spikes my blood pressure when I see it in others. I am entirely hypocritical and inconsistent! That's my world! And somehow, to my utter shame, I expect to function as an ambassador for Christ, even though I am riddled with obscenely numerous character flaws. To call me a "Christian" is a joke because I am nothing like Christ. 

It's interesting to me that in light of a pamphlet that the Jehovah's Witnesses are distributing bearing a depiction of Jesus, who coincidentally looks exactly like me, I have once again picked up Christ-related nicknames, this time at work. While I'm certain that Jesus was not a 6'3" fair-skinned, wavy-haired redhead of European descent, the nicknames have nevertheless gotten me to asking myself, "Are my appearance and initials the only things that remind people of Jesus?"

The fact that I seem to bear the reputation as the resident "Jesus freak" (my words, not theirs) at my workplace frightens me a little bit because I am greatly aware of what a terrible Christian I am. That's a lot of responsibility for someone as unholy as myself. Yet, at the same time, I realize that it's the kind of accountability that I need to keep me from being split into two separate identities that have nothing to do with each other. When I hear the phrase, "You may be the only Jesus they see," I start thinking, "Oh crap! I'm sorry folks! I wish I was a better Jesus for you!"

From what I can tell, not a single one of the swarms of stupid people who dwell on this earth works at my place of employment. My coworkers are not stupid. I know that none of them is too dim-witted to see the inconsistency between my tongue and my feet. I know that they've all seen the not-so-Christian side of me: the side that I desperately want hidden from the the greater Christian community, from whom I seek acceptance as a spiritual leader. That very truth disgusts me to my core. 

But the inescapable truth is that I'm corrupt to my core. There's a saying that goes, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." If I'm meant to be an ambassador of truth and light, isn't it fitting that truth and light be shed on my own life so that others will see the kinds of wretched souls Christ's blood has the power to save? Too many people have been deterred from this faith by the widespread lie that you have to be a good person to get into heaven. But that philosophy is an absolute load of garbage because by those standards, nobody goes to heaven. We're all Hell-bound by nature and, contrary to popular belief, becoming a "true" Christian doesn't change that. No matter how hard we try, we bear the characteristics of Satan as though we were his biological children.

I'm not a good person. I'm an awful person. Because my very soul was forged from the molten pits of Hell, not even my most valiant effort could yield a version of me that measures up to the standard of purity that Christ set for us. I am a hypocrite. I hope my life exudes love, but I cannot model consistency. And in a world characterized by predictably erratic behavior, it is my greatest hope that God's love and kindness would be made plain and that I might merely direct traffic toward His awesomeness.