The Natural

She ran right by me.

Blond, lean and dressed like a real runner, her long, smooth stride quickly overtook my fluffy, huffing and puffing figure. She was a natural.

As I watched her run toward the horizon, I imagined myself (not blond) as a "real runner". Maybe someday my strides will look effortless. I'll never be a natural, but I know that even she had to work up to a continuous run at some point.

In the meantime, I'm a wunner (walking with spurts of running).

Maybe so I could forget about the effort this wun was taking, I began thinking about the spiritual applications. To some, the Christian life seems effortless. Faith comes easily and goodness seems a natural outpouring of a sunny personality.

For others, following Jesus is full of doubts, struggles and forays into dark places. Angst, brokeness and wrestlin seem more pervasive in some.

Which one is the better Christian? It's so tempting to say that "The Natural" seems like the better answer. The bright smiles that plaster our churches as pain and sin boil underneath tell me that most people are trying to reach the goal of at least looking like "The Natural".

Here's what I Peter 1:6-7 says, "In this you greatly rejoice [our salvation], though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Broken, struggling, suffering--that is the Christian who will have a faith that in the end is of great worth than gold.

So I'll keep on wunning even though I probably scare anybody watching, and I'll keep on working to live authentically with joy shining out through the broken places rather than acting like "The Natural".