Unlocking the Doors

I just finished reading Sex God by Rob Bell last Saturday. It took me longer than I wanted to finish it, but I am glad that I read the last 2 chapters when I did. This past Saturday as we all know, was a very rainy one with potential tornadoes. The plan was to go to Anderson with Brittany and Sarah to compare prices for JR./SR. Well, with the weather the way it was, we decided to postpone our trip. Now, I had several other tasks I could have accomplished on one of my infamous “To Do” lists, but for some reason I decided to sit down and finish Sex God. Now, this man, Rob Bell is truly comfortable in his own skin, meaning he doesn’t mind being vulnerable because he is content with who he is through God. He’s sexy! In Chapter 2, he defines the word sexy is when it feels good to be in your own skin. Sexy is when you love being you. Now, he says his wife defined it, so let’s give her the props. I know this is a struggle for everyone. Sure, we can put on our confident masks, but below the surface there is something about each of us, that is inadequate. For some, the flaw may be on the surface, and for others it may be below much deeper.

This is the root of lust. When we find ourselves lacking because of some flaw, we begin to look for other things to satisfy us. In Chapter 4, Bell says that lust comes from a deep lack of satisfaction with life. So, obviously we can lust after other things besides those of the opposite sex. We can lust after money, health, family, cars, technology, anything basically. With doing this, we tend to devalue people and place them above or below us. Whether it’s for who they are or what they have that we don’t. And with devaluing one another, we become safe. We don’t chance loving one another in fear that we will get hurt. The truth is that love is risky! And a common misperception is that love isn’t risky for God. Oh, but it is! He submits to us. Bell defined submit in Ch. 6 as to tend to the needs of and to be responsive to. That is the RISK of love, by giving yourself over to someone completely and then having them reject you. Jesus died for us because God saw that people were worth dying for! And Jesus takes the risk of loving us every moment, every day, forever. Even greater is the risk that he came back from the dead to show his love is eternal!

And when you love someone despite your flaws, and despite the risk, I think this is where we begin to see how sexy we can be.

I am going to end this with quoting Rob Bell from the last chapter of the book, “Epilogue: More Balloons, please”.

“I have to believe that we can recover from anything. I have to believe that God can put anything-anyone-back together. I have to believe that the God Jesus invites us to trust is as good as he says he is. God is loving, forgiving, merciful, and full of grace. And I have to believe that God does not run out of balloons!”

God does not run out of grace.

Believe this.
Accept this.
Embrace this.
LOVE him for this!

This is me. I’m Liz, 20 years old.
It is required for me to keep a blog for my class, Interpersonal Communication. For a while I was using my old Xanga from high school. After looking at several other WordPress blogs, I decided to flock myself with the crowd. And WordPress is definitely better than Xanga which was popular in 2001. And, well it’s 2008. So, happy blogging!

P.S. I do plan to continue to write in here even after my class is over, and on other things besides communication.

P.P.S. My custom header is from a picture that I took while I was at the craft shop at the Biltmore house.