Life is full of messy struggles. Whether you’re a five-year old boy trying to fit in with thirty strangers in the school playground, or a fifty-year old woman catching her reflection in a store mirror and not liking what she sees, we all compare ourselves to others. We live in a world of comparison, and comparison is a merciless prosecutor.

Think back to when you were a child. If you were told that you were not as cool or as pretty as the other kids, you wore that as a label. The trouble with childhood labels is they can follow you into adulthood and turn from a label into a life-belief.

Think about the last time you didn’t like what you saw on the bathroom scale or in the eyes of your co-workers, that despair can knock you right into a vat of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream or a bottle of Jack Daniels. Failure can become as familiar as a friend. We need to be saved from how we see ourselves.

If we love God we want to please Him, but if we fall down or mess up it’s much easier to try and hide it than face it. Here’s my question, though. If God already knows everything that’s true, why do we think we have to pretend to be doing better than we really are?

I’m British, so I grew up being polite. It’s who we are. If you serve us a chicken that’s so raw it’s still clucking, we’ll thank you, eat it and just pray we don’t die! I don’t want to be like that with God. He’s big enough to handle what’s really going on. We spend so much of our Christian lives focusing on how well or poorly we think we’re doing, but here’s the big truth — it’s never been about us getting it right. It’s all about Jesus who had made us right.

So much of our personal unhappiness comes from the energy and time we give to trying to measure up to a standard that’s unattainable.

Not only that, it’s the exact opposite of the gospel.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23 ESV)

I’ve known that scripture since I was a child; but what does it actually mean?

Whenever I wrestle with something in scripture, I look to Jesus. Every detail of Christ’s life and death gives us insight into how to live, no matter the mess. He showed us what it looks like to glorify God in the middle of everything that’s going on around us.

Even on his way to the cross.

When a condemned criminal was on his way to be crucified, he was made to carry the cross bar by himself. It was clear to everyone watching that this was a one-way ticket. He would not be returning. Christ set his face towards the hill of Calvary and didn’t look back.

But do you remember how He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane?

He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Matthew 26:38-39 NLT)

Jesus didn’t pretend that He wanted to go through the agony of crucifixion. He told the truth. He was deeply troubled, distressed, anxious and devastated; and that’s how He prayed. If Jesus didn’t think being honest showed a lack of faith, why should we? Pour your heart out to God. Tell the truth. You get to be you! Christianity is not a place to hide; it’s the ultimate place to show up.