Mister Preacher: Guilt, Worry & the Frog on My Chest

I realized something. I realized that I live in a constant state of guilt and worry. I don’t tell you this because I have some spectacular, four-step way to deal with it. It just is. Like a big fat frog sitting on my chest.

I hate frogs.

In my mind, he’s heavy, slowly breathing—heaving up, then down—in slow, unworried breaths, eyeing me with slimy black pearls behind thick greenish flaps of skin. And I’m anxious because that fat, oily freak, as calm as he may seem, could leap at any moment. So I can’t take my eyes off of him. I want to look away, get on with my life in peace, but I

can’t.

look.

away.

I’m obsessed with goodness. Even when I think I’m not, I am. I’m in a situation right this moment where I have to trust God. I’ve had tremendous peace over the whole situation (which is unlike me). But, as the circumstances linger, and the outcome I imagined must be going to happen, hasn’t, I’ve noted anxiety creeping back in. I catch myself thinking things like, “Maybe it’s something I did,” or “I’ll pray more. He’ll like that!”

It’s like I believe somewhere deep inside my reptile brain that God can be manipulated by my superficial spirituality.

I know I am loved. “Loved” doesn’t even begin to label it. I know that the God of the universe, who set the world spinning, the butterflies fluttering, and made creepy, freaking tree frogs spring out of his imagination, who knitted me together in my mother’s womb—the God of all things; the perfect God; the only God—cares about my life.

The facts are in my head,

in my heart, and smoldering in my everlasting soul,

but something in me fears He’s going to let me down.

I despise that part of me.

It’s the part of me that glares back for not always doing more, the part that barks guilt at me for doubting, or making the smallest blunder. It’s the red, burning circle in my brain that never lets me forget every mistake I’ve ever made and whispers that’s all I’ll ever be: 

My mistakes.

But the Truth doesn’t just shrug and let itself be outdone. Well, the facts do. As earth-shakingly astounding as they are, my pride easily pushes facts aside so that I can wallow in my self-deprecation. But not the Truth. The Truth comes. The person of Jesus Christ only has to whisper, and my pride shrinks back, my sin, which I have made so very large, shrivels—the smoke blown away, the mirrors shattered to reveal the facts and the Truth becoming one. A personal incarnation to encourage me, to remind me of his unyielding love.

How do I ever let that memory escape me?

I don’t know. But I do.

But God is dogged in his determination to love me. As many times as I forget, he will come. He will pursue me, even in my determination to sin. He will always pull me to Him.

And I am grateful. There is a song on my lips!

But I still hate frogs.