I want to Treasure Jesus and what He Treasures!

I just read this quote from the Truefaced guys, "Performance-obsessed cultures can never promote healing. Rather, they create more wounding." I was struck by how profound this statement is. I know the wounds of the performance-obsessed, from the extreme (in our puny little minds), adultery and porn addiction, to the benign (though not really benign), gossip and the need to fix those around us. But yet at any given moment we are all prone to fall into a mode of being performance driven. I notice that sometimes when my kids are doing something childish (imagine that - childish children) I start managing their behavior because I want them to look good because then I look good. Or sometimes I will say something, just because I know that someone around the table will think it is a really intelligent statement or really funny.

The dilemma is that although my children might look super on the outside they are as rebellious as ever on the inside, or maybe they aren't rebellious maybe they are content to please mom and change their behavior. But what if in changing their behavior they also start to believe that who they are isn't pleasing to me so they need to be something else - check out the wound I have just inflicted on their spirit. Or what if I create a mask so that when others see me they see an intelligent, put together, homeschooling mother of three with an impeccable sense of humor and one day I show up and my mask isn't on just right and they find out that I'm not all that intelligent or put together, and my humor falls short most of the time. I don't know about you but I have done my fair share of mask wearing and I have the scars to prove it.

And then I found out that Jesus isn't as interested in my performance as most of His followers are. I found out that He had already called me His own, so it doesn't matter if others want to disown me. He not only called me His own but He created me with a unique personality and He doesn't really want me to cover His workmanship with a mask. So, I'm on this journey to treasure Jesus, which flows over into treasuring what Jesus has declared His..... and that is you and me.