“The angels cry in Isaiah 6:3, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!’ It’s full of billions of human image bearers. Glorious ruins.” This was a quote that my church posted from our former pastor John Piper last week on Instagram and I couldn’t help but screenshot the beautiful saying. The last bit struck me as particularly lovely: “glorious ruins.” In layman’s terms, we’re all hot messes.
I’m a fairly organized person and even when I’m not, I like seeming like I am. I think most of us are like that; we like to be seen as having it all together. But then there’s the opposite end of the spectrum.You know, the melodramatic one who claims to be an emotional wreck on the inside while still managing to have a face full of perfectly applied makeup with not a hair out of place. Sure, uh huh, you totally look like you’re riding the struggle bus. And then it becomes a competition. Who can keep it together long enough, whose life sucks more, or whose meltdown will be on par with Brittany Spear’s head shaving incident; we become addicted to the comparison game on who can handle life’s hurdles the worst…or the best?
At the core, however, what are we really comparing? Sure, we all can get a high off of complaining sometimes but where does this catharsis of being a hot mess truly come from? I think it comes from the fundamental human need for grace. As much as we’d like to say we have it all together or even claim that we don’t, we all fall short of the glory and perfection of God. And God knows that, but sometimes, most times, we forget. We look horizontally, rolling our eyes at the people who complain about what seems to us be the most insignificant details of life or admire those who always seem to be pulling their weight flawlessly, thinking that somehow we either need to be the bearers of grace to those who complain or the receivers of grace from those whose work ethic is almost inhuman. Inhuman; that’s where we miss the mark. We can never achieve the kind of inhuman grace of God, even on a good day. We weren’t designed to. That load is one that is too heavy for even the most well put-together people to carry. We were designed to be human and even though it comes with an onslaught of problems, internal and external, it comes with an overwhelming beauty and enormous need for that inhuman grace that God provides.
Music artist Jon Bellion’s song “Maybe IDK” contains a pre-chorus that goes like this: “I guess if I knew tomorrow/I guess I wouldn’t need faith/I guess if I never fell/I guess I wouldn’t need grace/I guess if I knew His plans/I guess He wouldn’t be God.” We don’t know tomorrow, so yes, we do need faith. We don’t know what’s up ahead, so no, we are not God. And most importantly, yes, we do fall and we do need grace. And we need to look to the One who can actually give it to us: God. Glorious ruins, indeed.
