Back to the Basics.

I am a child of God.

Yes, I, a broken girl once dead in her sins, am a child of God.

Sometimes I need to stop and just revel in that truth. The truth that the infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, creator God calls me his daughter. As mothers and fathers love their children, so this God of the Universe loves me as one of His own.

I am a child of God, the King.

Woa.

The sad part is, most of the time I am so busy trying to work out my salvation that I lose sight of this. The reality is that it is easier for me to do things for God rather than simply bask in the beauty of being God's.

And lately, I have felt God calling me back to this simple truth that I am His and that being His is more than enough. I have felt God calling me to take a break from trying to figure out how to "best serve" Him. To stop my attempts at winning His approval. To put aside what I think I need to do to be a "radical" follower of Jesus. To let go of all these empty pursuits and instead, revisit the foundation of this journey with Him. To simply remember that a relationship must come before service.

God, in His tender and loving way, has been calling me back to the basics.

I think it started with this whole "radical" kick I've been on. And while I still believe in Christ's "sold out, sell everything, deny yourself" calling, I started to realize that I was being consumed by it rather than being compelled to it.

There's a big difference.

Being consumed by it led to obsessing over what I was or wasn't doing for God. It quickly became a tug of war within my heart of how much was enough. Going to Thailand wasn't enough. Selling everything wasn't enough. There was always something more I could, or should, be doing.

And so, I was constantly failing. Never feeling good enough. Always feeling restless.

And I started becoming bitter.

Bitter at the world for making it so hard to die to self. Bitter at myself for falling short. And bitter at God. For giving me this impossible task of living in the world, but not of it. For convicting me to the point of guilt and shame. And bitter, so very bitter, for feeling like I had to earn His love.

It wasn't until I returned to the basics that I saw how I had twisted God's love for me into something conditional. Returning to the basics made me realize that I had let my actions dictate my relationship with God rather than the Gospel.

And here it is.

The basics: The just and loving Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent his Son, God in the flesh, to bear his wrath against sin on the cross and to show his power over sin in the Resurrection so that all who trust in him will be reconciled to God forever.

That's it. When all is stripped away--the politics, the legalism, the hypocrisy, our self glorifying actions--when all of our sinful junk that we've attached to "religion" or Christianity is no more, we are left with this basic truth of the Gospel.

The basic truth that God has done it all. His love is perfect and His grace is sufficient. I have been reconciled to God forever and there's nothing I can do to take away from or add to it. No action of mine, however radical, will change the fact that I am His child and forever His beloved. His love for me is complete.

This is where freedom is found. When living in light of the Gospel, we experience a freedom to serve God out of His love for us. When living in light of the Gospel, we are compelled, not obligated, to give up all things to be more like His Son.

Before the basics, Thailand was about loving people and winning souls to Christ. Living in the basics, Thailand is simply about becoming more like Jesus. Bearing His image and glorifying God through His redemptive work within me.

So simple. So basic. Yet so radical.