GOD DOESN'T WEAR A SUIT & TIE
by Talin Shahinian

od isn't about the clean, neat, tidy, Sunday best, washed, folded and pressed. He's all about the ones outside the church walls. The ones with no place to be or belong, the nomads and ragamuffins, the skeptics and cynics, the downtrodden, disgusted, depraved and discarded people who wander the earth looking for a home: in short, he's all about you and I.

Get past the endless clouds of smokescreen created by dogma and religion and find out who Jesus hung around with, a hint: it wasn't the church folk of his day. Instead, he was hanging out with the so-called undesirable elements of society, proclaiming the radical acceptance of the common people that was a taboo to the religious leaders of his day. The love that he expressed to all people was a threat to the hierarchy of the day, that meddlesome Jesus was making the priests livid—he was taking away all their false power and prestige, and loosening their control over the people; not to mention all the money he was causing them to lose! Telling people the Kingdom of Heaven could be obtained directly, without paying for all the rituals they provided the people! How dare he! Most of all he was freeing people from fear—the fear the leaders had instilled to keep the money flowing in. One thing was for certain in their minds, and that was that he had to be stopped... and you all know how that story ended.

So, to this day, being a believer in Jesus Christ is not about religion, it's about relationship. It's not about what you believe, but who you know. It's not about following rules; it's about receiving His love for you. It's Unconditional, Eternal, Priceless yet absolutely Free. You can say "No" to His love and He'll still love you because you're His kid whether you accept it or not. You can spit on His face, His name, His image and everything He stands for, and He'll still love you. Like a Mother... the best kind of Mother, or Father, the one who loves you like a parent should: without reservation, because they can't help it, because they made you, because you come from them, and no matter how far you wander, they will always remember having held you in their arms when you were small and their job was to protect you. Many of our parents screwed up in the unconditional love department (to put it mildly...)

Many of us have experienced suffering that made us doubt that even God was watching out for us, we felt alone in a universe filled with suffering, loss, empty idols and conspicuous consumption that did nothing to fill our soul hungers, yes, even then, He was there, and He is still there. One look around the world today and it's hard to believe there is a God, much less a compassionate concerned God who wants to be the love of your life, like you are the love of his. All the suffering, evil, and madness is not His fault, except if you want to blame Him for giving us free will. We wanted it. We took it and demanded it, and this is what we have to show for it; a broken world full of broken souls.

There is a way out though, and it's just through us saying, "Yes, show me what it's like to be loved. Show me that you love me, let me feel it, surround me with it, drench me in love till I can't deny it..." If we can humble ourselves enough to be loved, we can begin again, but just know this: there is nothing you can do in this lifetime to make Him love you any less, and there are no "good works" that will ever make Him love you any more than He loves you right at this moment, just the way you are, as who you are, no matter what you have done, or where you have been in life. Isn't that freeing? It is for me. There's no earning this Love, and no losing it. It's a birthright, and it comes with being human. I know deep in the marrow of my bones that God did not love me any less when I was mired deeply in sin, and in rebellion, doing whatever I wanted, living my life for myself, and doing it all my own way. He doesn't love me any more now that I have decided to let Him guide my life and help me make better choices. The love he had for me was always vast, infinite and full of His mercy and grace, and wasn't about how "good" I was, or how "bad" I was. I am more aware of His love now that I am in a relationship with Him, but it is I who changed, not His constant devotion to me. He always believed in me, now I believe in Him.

I'm still ragged around the edges, tired, world-weary and imperfect. I'm not squeaky-clean, or some kind of preppy Christian clone. I don't vote Republican. I'm not "conservative". I'm not "right-wing" (give me an aisle seat any day... *smirk*) Really, there isn't too much about me that announces me as a Christian—as far as how the media portrays the stereotypical Christian anyway (who I'm often convinced isn't reading the same Bible I am... but I digress.) I've still got dirt under the fingernails of my soul, and circles under my eyes, but my eyes see hope, through all the darkness of this world. I have eternal eyesight that takes me beyond the here and now and puts everything into a different perspective. At the end of the day, I know what it means to collapse into the lap of my Father and go to sleep like a child can, in complete love and trust and peace. That's a gift. I know how to crawl into his lap when the world gets ugly and life gets too rough and just say: "be with me, come love me" and He does. The God that created the universe and put the stars in their place comes and hugs me! Why should He? Doesn't He have better things to do than hug me? He doesn't seem to think so. If that's not amazing enough in and of itself, it's that His lap is big enough for the whole world, and He can dry the tears of all that weep. He can cradle me in His love and hug a million other people around the world at the same time, without "playing favorites"—to think we are, each one of us, all the apple of His eye. Sometimes my mind can't wrap around how vast He is, and how all encompassing His love is, or a million other mysteries of this world, and the universe beyond it, but then I'm reminded that just for tonight I don't have to figure it out. I can just be His kid, and let Him take care of the rest. For an over-thinker, that's just another gift he gives me.

The only thing I need to do is surrender to love and let all the rest slip away...

- Talin Shahinian