Would it surprise you to know that the greatest role model of Christian living and faith—Jesus—is not someone we should entirely strive to be like?
If you were raised in the Church like me, you probably heard many times about how “becoming like Jesus” is the ultimate goal of following Christ, the Great Commission, and even our transformation and refinement as a divine Bride. It is true that we are to be imitators of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:11): His character, His connection and dependency on God, His capacity for unconditional love, His balanced life that incorporates ministry time, human connection, and solitude.
Sometimes, however, we can be prone to shame ourselves about the ways we fall short of being like Jesus. And interestingly, this shame might not just be communicating more work you need to do or grace to receive to become who you’re supposed to be. Rather, it might be communicating a limitation of your own capacity as a human being.
There are some ways, in fact, we cannot be like Jesus. If you feel shame for not measuring up to these ways, release yourselves from a standard you do not need to meet.
1. YOU ARE NOT A SAVIOR
Have you ever felt that you are pushed to your limits as a human being in ministry? As a parent? As a young professional, a friend, or any sort of person in relationship with others? Moreover, have you ever felt that someone offered you a problem too big for you to know how to navigate or handle?
Maybe it is. Maybe some problems, relationships, situations, or experiences are too big to handle, too complex to solve. In fact… maybe they are not your problem to solve.
Please don’t hear this as me advocating for irresponsibility. If you are a parent of young children, if you are pastoring a church, if you are a teacher, a counselor, or a leader of any kind, then you must not abandon those in your charge. Ask for help, take that needed sabbatical or job switch if you can and must, but steward what you have as best you can.
However, for larger-than-life problems that feel out of hand, there may come a point when you realize that you have reached your capacity and you are in need of saving. And that’s okay… because ultimately Jesus is the Savior. He empowers us through wisdom, grace gifts, and understanding, but ultimately He is our strength. Like a good parent who doesn’t expect their child to reciprocate caretaking, God is good just being God… and with us being human.
If He could save the world by Himself on a cross when all of His disciples abandoned Him, then He can continue saving the world day-by-day.
Sometimes we read verses about whom He shall send and feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders. But that’s just not true. God wants our participation, but He doesn’t need our participation. If He could save the world by Himself on a cross when all of His disciples abandoned Him, then He can continue saving the world day-by-day.
2. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE A BAD DAY
Do you ever wonder how Jesus—let alone God the Father—handles all of your emotional chaos perfectly? How He knows how to comfort, how to provide the right help when you need it, how to remain compassionate and steady when you’re kicking up a storm, and how to be there, on time, exactly when you need Him, no matter how many times you’ve thrown in the towel relationally?
His enormous capacity for grace and perfect emotional attunement sometimes feels too good to be true, as if surely it will expire like our own. But that’s the point: it won’t. He is perfection. He is emotional attunement and grace and goodness for our every bad day.
Moreover, Jesus doesn’t expect perfection of us. Yes, we are told to be perfect as He is, but that is a path of transformation, not a destination, at least on this side of Heaven. He gets it, He really does, when our day just throws us for a loop, and we lose all our marbles. As with Peter after his denial at the Cross, He meets us where we are, ready to restore us when the dark night is over.
The next time you begin shaming yourself for all the ways you failed, remember that the best thing you can do in that moment is to turn to the unconditional love and compassion the Lord already wants to lavish upon you. Let that love pick you back up and lead you to repair with others where you may have caused injury, to take responsibility to do things differently if you need to, and to give yourself the grace to try again.
3. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO
Just a few days ago, I journaled about a personal conundrum—a desire on my heart that felt out of my hands. With my words and mind, I analyzed it from every direction, thought through all the possible actions I could take to accomplish it, and plotted the various backup plans I had in case my initial ideas fell through. Finally, exhausted, I put aside my pens and paper and pulled before my eyes the image of the dream I was after. “I can’t Lord,” I said. “I can never make this happen. It’s out of my hands. I can’t… but you can.”
Admitting that felt vulnerable—a realization of my utter incapacity to get where I wanted to go.
We are gifted with wisdom and given minds and hearts to help us think and feel our way forward. I always advocate that we exert our human abilities in finding our way. But sometimes we have reached our capacity to know how to get from A to D, and that’s okay.
It’s okay because we are sheep, and He is the Shepherd. You’re probably sick of reading that by now, but I don’t know a clearer way to understand following Jesus.
Whatever roadblock you’re facing—whether it’s a God-sized dream or simply a human-sized obstacle you cannot overcome—it’s okay to not know what to do and to ask for help. It is good for us to be human, and God to be God.