Being naked gives a giddy sense of freedom, doesn’t it?

Have you ever been naked in a place that you normally wouldn’t be naked? It can be such a delicious sensation (and it can potentially be rather embarrassing!). Though not all of us have bodies that we would want to display in all of its “natural” splendor, there’s something disarming and equalizing while wearing our birthday suits.

I got to thinking about this the other day while at a unique conference called Catalyst (http://www.catalystconference.com/). Catalyst seeks to provide leadership initiative to the 20-30 year old generation of church leaders. Everything presented is innovative, thought-provoking, energizing. It can even get the blood of us older codgers percolating.

There I was, a 50-something surround by 20- and 30-somethings, and between the monkey on the speaker’s head (literally) and white stallions prancing into the arena (I told you it was energizing!), it dawned on me. I’m so full of crap that it squishes when I walk. It’s all over me. I’m glad I can’t smell myself!

How can my God use me when I’m such a mess? He wants me to get naked. Strip off all the crap, come clean. He wants me, not my crap. But I so love my crap. It’s quite a dilemma.

An interesting writer I’ve come across says it this way:

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.    —Romans 8:5-8

“God isn’t pleased at being ignored.” Humph! Make your daddy mad enough and long enough, watch out!

You see, I’ve come to realize that He isn’t just hanging around wanting to punish me. He wants to just hang out with me. Me. The 50-something who is amazed at a speaker coming out with a monkey on his head. The “older” child who just wants Daddy to acknowledge him and do something with him. My rowdiness, my crap, doesn’t draw Him to me. I draw Him to me. He’s not pleased with my obsession of me; he simply wants to clean me up so I can sit on His lap and not mess up His clothes — He wants me naked!

The prophet says:

Wash yourselves and be clean!
Get your sins out of my sight.
Give up your evil ways.
—Isaiah 1:16