Photo by Branimir Balogović on Unsplash

Journey through the wilderness this Lenten season with a new blog published every week by Patrick.

“Who am I when no one is looking?”

Pastor and author Mark Sayers recently asked this question in a podcast I was listening to. It’s a good question for us to ask ourselves, especially in this time of Lent.

In our lives, I find there tends to be a difference between the person we present ourselves to be to others and the person we actually are. 

In our culture, which demands performance and achievement, it can be incredibly tempting to hide and mask our weaknesses and shortcomings. 

And we can also do this in our relationship with Jesus. We can often be tempted to present idealized versions of ourselves to the Lord. Instead of showing up to prayer as we are, we give the Lord what we like and not what we don’t.

The invitation this week is to give Jesus everything—the good, bad and worse. We do not need to be afraid or feel ashamed to present the not-so-nice things in our lives to Him. 

Ours is a God who loves us so much that He sent His only Son—like us in all things but sin—to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus paid for our sins to restore us to a right relationship with our loving Father.

Ours is a God whose love is unconditional and whose forgiveness is unfathomable.

Confident and secure in our relationship with a good God, we journey into the wilderness. It is in this trial that we confront our very real and very broken selves: the person who sins and fails, the person who battles addiction and a bad temper. In the wilderness, we encounter the poverty of ourselves.

By being broken down, we can be built up by Jesus.

Jesus desires to encounter us in our wounds, pains, sins and weaknesses. He can only encounter the real us when we freely open up to Him. 

In the same podcast that I mentioned at the top, Sayers says that renewal begins first in hidden places, the places where no one is looking. 

May we begin the journey of renewal this week by allowing Jesus to encounter us in the places of our greatest hurt. 

Those places no one sees, and perhaps we don’t want anyone to see, are the same places Jesus desires to bring about the greatest healing in our lives. 

Perhaps that place that no one sees may soon be where we can minister from with the most power, for it may be the place of God’s greatest work in our lives.

Patrick is a beloved son of the Father who desires to use his gifts to build up the Kingdom of God. You can read more of his writing on his blog.