So, building on my last blog, I’ve lived with me all my life, I’m not surprised by who I am or what I’ve done because I was there. Well, sometimes I am shocked by the things I’ve done but it isn’t ever a game changer for me because I can’t be anyone else.

I have come to see, you only get to see the parts of me that I feel are safe for you to see. My fear is, if you knew it all, you would be so shocked it would be a game changer for you. You’d say, you know Scott Ranck isn’t who I thought he was. Learning this one thing about him changes everything. I think I will unfriend him from my Facebook account! I really don’t want anything to do with him anymore.

Even worse, when your spouse discovers things you have hidden from her for fear she will not be able to love you or stay with you because of some hidden facet of your life, it could be a game changer, she may decide she no longer could love you and stay married to you. This fear is what keeps men so quiet at home. Their feeling of guilt over not measuring up and shame at some past or current behavior has us bound in a straight jacket and well hidden within ourselves.

The shocking thing to me is even before I knew me and everything about me, God looked down through time and knew everything I would ever do before I did it. He knew when I would do stupid things just to get seen. He knows when I got in trouble just because I wanted to fit in. He knows every time I just chose to do the wrong things. He knows fully every shameful, evil thought or deed I have ever done or considered doing. He has been with me every step, every breath of the way. Because He knew it all in advance nothing I ever did shocked Him!

The amazing, shocking truth is it isn’t a game changer for Him! In fact, He says I have a remedy to put us both at ease with each other. Jesus will pay for your pile of stuff and in return I can impute or declare you are totally right in my sight because someone else did your time for the crime! So, Jesus and me, the only two who know it all, stand there together and look at all the mess I’ve made and He says, “I got your back son.  Dad says you are as Holy and Righteous as Me, and I love you just like He loves me! Relax, you don’t have to prove anything to me, you are as good as you can get in my eyes!” Can you breath out that sigh of relief you do on your second day of vacation when the stress is leaving your body? Loved, no shame, no guilt, no condemnation, fully accepted, no pretending and never shocked by a new discovery. Never a game changer, forever.

What would it be like to be part of a group of people who knew your worst but were able to accept what God says about you. Who could treat you and others in the same way as the Lord who knows it all does. That would be the best place in the world to be!

Read more about this concept in “The Cure” by John Lynch. You can find it at www.truefaced.com

Blessings,

Scott