Beyond Easter

When I ask God for what I want, it goes like this:

Help me do better teaching a class. I wish to remember what I saw in myself last time, that ugly need to look like Somebody. You brought up short this clawing creature, revealing poor motives. I struggled. I cried for help. Let me move forward this next time, doing better.

God says, "Okay."

I do the class better. Recalling flaws from last time, I make fewer. A student even mentions I was smooth. Inside myself, I'm all Yes!! and leaping onto furniture.

But God's priorities and mine differ in the largest sense.

A situation sails in out of the turquoise, and here I sit. Stuck. Exposed. Complex motives to sort, good intentions gone awry. Questioning, raging, then.

Oh, God, I see the wrong in me. Help.

Either God is a sadist, or.

The priority isn't to move forward, doing better (as much of a grace and gift as that can be). The one necessary thing involves - requires - keeping sight of what's real about me (not pretty, but it's such a relief to remember mercy) and what's actual about the God who has a clue.