Between the Lines

“On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”  

John 7:37-38

Sometimes the Lord gives me images when I am praying and I have gotten better at not dismissing them, but instead asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning. Our imagination is part of how we were created as human beings, thus it can be a way for the Lord to speak to us. This of course is easier for some people than others, but all of us would do well to use our imagination to converse with the Lord every so often.

A recent image I saw was two lines with a holy water fount in between them and darkness on the outside of both lines. As I prayed about this image I began to realize something very personal about my life that I feel called to share.

In my life, I have been trying to live above the line. As a woman who is independent, who can do all things, a hard worker, someone who was willing to go above and beyond, a person who was always doing more than what was expected. This attitude about life really helped me to strive to be the best I could be, but it became clear to me that my intentions have not always been pure in why I wanted to succeed. For me, success, notoriety, and influence were a reflection of who I was and thus I always felt I needed to prove to others and myself that I was good, worthy, loved, successful, and so on.

I came to understand that this line that I was striving to live above was actually God’s line of grace. Remember that in the image I saw, above this line was darkness, where we end up when we try to live up to an expectation for ourselves that not even God has for us. It’s where we dare to think that we know better than God. Above the line is darkness because we leave God out and block His grace. This is where we measure our success based upon what we do instead of who we are.

Above the line is also where fear exists because the motivation is not love and so we operate out of a fear of failure. Above the line is where we place ourselves when we are striving for a worldly perfection, when we are seeking success that would place us above others and draw attention to ourselves. Above the line is where we have convinced ourselves that we are in control, where we lack faith because we don’t necessarily need God to help us, we have it all taken care of on our own. Above the line is a place of pride and vanity, where we see ourselves as better than others, boastful of how put together our lives are compared to others. Above the line is spiritual pride where we stroke our ego as we remind ourselves of all the ways we ourselves are good.

I was reminded of something that a very wise friend told me. If we place a bar higher for ourselves than God does then we are denying God. We are essentially saying that we know more than God, which is an offense against God. Although we love God, we are so busy doing all the things that we feel necessary in order for us to be loved that we lose sight of simply letting God love us. This is the core of our very existence. It is enough to be loved by the Lord. Our very existence is held in His love.

As I prayed with this more, I realized that there was also darkness beyond the line underneath the holy water font. Living under this line is also where fear dwells, but a much different kind of fear. Below this line is where we struggle with shame and despair; with the fear of unworthiness. It is where we avoid looking at our sin and we are afraid of bringing it to the light. It is where we don’t allow the Lord to forgive us because we cannot forgive ourselves. Below the line is where our past can haunt us and the uncertainty of our future keeps us anxious. It is where we do not truly believe that God loves us and that He is powerful enough to save us. Here we are convinced that our current situation is our plight in life and to hope for more would be prideful.

By placing ourselves under the line of grace, we are in essence denying God and our own inherent goodness in which we were created. There is darkness under this line because God is not hoped for and so He is blocked by us. To hope in God’s promises for us is to step into our dignity and our purpose as beloved children of God. To deny the love that God has for us and the potential He has created us for is to deny His goodness and the power through which He can save us. Just as Adam and Eve hid in the garden after they sinned, our sin leads us to feel unworthy and so we hide from the Lord. But if we remain in hiding or if we begin to blame others as Adam and Eve did, then we will remain below the line. Our unworthiness in comparison to God is true, but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the power of forgiveness we are able to rise above despair and into the holiness of who we were created to be. 

Both by trying to live above or below the line of God’s grace, are a denial of the Lord. These are places where we block His grace from penetrating our hearts. By denying God in these ways we are actually denying ourselves the opportunity to live according to His commands, to step into the freedom of who He created us to be, with our unique gifts, talents, charims, personality, and temperament. Each one of us is made unique and then placed in a specific home, family, parish, community, country, and generation to be a reflection of one particular piece of God’s Heart. If we do not shine as God’s Light in exactly where we have been placed, the world around us will be missing that unique piece of God’s own Heart that we were created to reflect. Living from a place of fear, whether it be a fear of failure or a fear of our unworthiness, is never what the Lord wants for us. Fear divides, but God unites.

We are all called to live between the lines. In the image I saw, between the lines was a holy water fount. This is so fitting because it is where our Baptismal promises are lived out. The fount represents the never ending wellspring of God’s grace that is available to us. When we live from this place, we are filled with His peace, love, joy and strength, no matter what the circumstance. Between the lines is Light and all evil and darkness are disbursed when brought into the Light of Christ.

No matter how hard it may seem, the Lord is calling us to step into the Light, to be healed, purified and restored. To drink from the wellspring of His grace so that we will never thirst again. We must be brave in our pursuit of God. When we strive to remain between the lines, we remain in God’s grace. This is authentic worship of God, for it honors who God is and who He created us to be.

When we stand in the Light, fully forgiven, we begin living from a place of love instead of a place of fear. We place our trust in God, realizing that we are not in control, nor should we desire to be. Here we are able to see others as God sees them, each with unique gifts and each called to be their own unique reflection of the Lord. Between the lines is where we recognize that we are all the Body of Christ and thus each of us has an inherent dignity that lies within us, that was created by God, for God, and that actually is God.