When You Do This, You Will Leak

Lionel is scruffy and discolored, the Velveteen Lion that my son Isaac loves with an irrational kind of love. He comes with us everywhere, and on those days when he is temporarily lost, we call the police and the fire fighters, who scour the city at great personal risk until he is found.But there is a problem. Lionel is six years old, and he keeps losing his stuffing.We once re-stuffed him with uncooked quinoa seeds, then we absentmindedly put him through the wash. I’m positive it was Mary’s idea. When he came out, he smelled awful, his cooked innards a hot mess. So we opened him up, cleaned him out, and stuffed him with tiny beads.That was a couple of years ago, and since then, he has developed a small hole in his back, and those beads are slowly leaking out. We’re finding them all over the house, one by one. Lionel is losing his beads and looking skinnier and shabbier, and we’re not totally sure what to do about it, because the hole is tiny, and isn’t on a seam.We bought an identical Lionel just in case the real Lionel was lost or flushed down the toilet or carried off by feral wolves. The problem is that now, the fake Lionel looks too new, too un-shabby. When the real Lionel is lost, we offer the fake Lionel to Isaac, but he doesn’t want it.  He treats it like a scab that has crossed the picket line.Isaac isn’t interested in fake Lionel.What do you do with yourself when your beads are leaking out everywhere, and you are a shabby mess? I think my main strategy for years has been to quickly clean up the beads, before anyone else sees them. When I notice that I don’t have enough on the insides, instead of doing something about that, I offer a fake version of myself, one that doesn’t require what is really inside of me.But anyone who actually loves me isn’t interested in fake Steve. And God isn’t interested in fake Steve, either.There is a weird idea that we find in Scriptures. It’s quietly revolutionary. It’s God’s trademark move.“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I’ve just recently realized that I have always seen that verse simply as another strategy to be powerful. Ohh, I get it. I need to appear weak, and that’s how I’ll really be strong. But it was always about being strong. No leaking beads. No shabbiness.But now I don’t think that’s what this verse is saying.It seems to be encouraging me to embrace my ongoing weakness, and to stop ignoring it, working around it, or pushing through it. It seems as though there is something about God’s power that needs to encounter my ongoing weakness in order for God’s power to be at full strength. It is not a strategy for me to be powerful. It’s the truth that I encounter God’s power only when I am leaking beads everywhere. And for a white, male, educated American that is a tough assignment.So here’s the idea: You’re at your best when you are leaking beads everywhere. You are doing the courageous thing when you are offering who you really are. When you do that, you will leak what is inside.What do you need in order to live that way?My grace is sufficient for you. Grace is irrational.Grace is the radical idea that you are loved beyond worthiness and unworthiness, even when you’re losing your stuffing and your patience, even when you could have done it better and didn’t. Even when you’re weak.Grace declares that you are loved as you are, not according to what you produce.Grace will find a way to keep filling you up, so you will always have enough inside to give away what you need to give away.Grace says that you are loved, and that is enough.