Street bum with a job

I heard something on the radio today that stuck with me… a man was talking about us as people. He said “Who we really are as people is not who we are when we stand triumphant on the mountaintops, but who we are under the rubble of the disasters of our lives” At first I was indignant about this… in fact I was quite snotty about it. I wanted to argue and tell this man he was wrong to speak for us. I am a man who is triumphant and making great strides to undo a lot of bad things and am doing quite well etc. etc. etc…
I thought about what he said all day and it finally struck a chord with me. Who we are is NOT who we are when things are going well… who we are and the real character of who we are is who comes out when our world collapses. I was pretty impressed with myself for figuring this out, and then another thought passed through my head… I’ve been here when my world has collapsed several times and I gotta say… I pretty much suck. I mean really. I would love to brag and say I was the guy who was on top of the world and when my world caved in all around me, I was still standing tall and rebuilding walls and being the mighty man blah blah blah... but you know? When my world caved in, so did I.
Who we are is not the issue here. If our lives are based on who WE are then we fail. I know that’s contrary to the champion lifestyle we are all striving to achieve, but it’s true. When I found myself in my lowest points, I’ve always realized just how far away from a loving God I have walked. God has yet to allow me to walk next to him and then let my world collapse. It’s always when I’ve strayed. I’ve realized that short of God… I am a street person with a job. Nothing more… it’s his grace that allows me to have a life apart from sleeping in cardboard. People don’t aspire to be street bums. They just fall on hard times and never get out of the trap of being where they have fallen.
Life is hard… but walking in a life without the grace and goodness of God is harder. But the hardest thing I’ve ever done is to walk along and not acknowledging the goodness of God in my life and to take what he freely gives as a gift and spit on it. I have had the opportunity recently to watch a friend of mine give and give and be stepped on by the person being helped. It caused me to realize how many times in MY own life I have taken God’s goodness for granted and how many times I should have been pounded into dog food for doing it, and never getting what I deserve. I was indignant with my friend’s guest for the way they treated my friend, and yet I find myself being ungrateful for God giving me the grace to make it through one more day and I just leave dishes on his sink and toothpaste on his bathroom floor… I’m a piece of work I tell ya…
Maybe one of these days I’ll figure it all out, but then again… I doubt it. ; )