I don’t know if you’ve heard the news….but reality shows aren’t real.

The latest disappointment (seriously, I was bummed) was House Hunters.  Pretending to look at house?  Searching, but already decided?  And here I thought all of that agonizing and arguing was real.  Just like HGTV has sold us fakery disguised as truth, so has the church when it comes to following Jesus.

I was taught that following Jesus would be an instantaneous, life-transforming amazeballs kind of experience.  Everything would be awesome, and there would never be any big mistakes again.

Sometimes it feels like my decision to follow Jesus as a kid, a teen, is like finding out that a reality show isn’t so real.  The secret’s out.  There’s nothing magical or instantaneous about it.  Instead of 3 options – sin, sin, Jesus – there are hundreds of options and situations, and they could all be the right house.  Jesus can be in all of it.  Life isn’t black and white, and you can’t really find a house by only looking at 3.

I had a pastor once say following Jesus is the easiest thing ever. 

Really?  I think being lazy is the easiest thing ever.  I can think of plenty of things that are easier than trying to form my life into who God has called me to be.

I can remember so many youth group nights – so, so many, where following Jesus was all about the emotional high, and if you could just keep that high going, then life would be easy.  Following Jesus would be easy, if we could just get out of the way.  It would be so easy if we would just stop sinning.  They told us following Jesus is common sense – sin is bad, God is good.  Oh, but just focus on the cross and how bad we are, because that’s all there is to Jesus.  Concentrate on how sinful you are, but don’t you dare sin.

When I said I wanted to follow Jesus (again and again), nothing ever happened.  It wasn’t a life-transforming event.  It just threw a blanket on everything I wanted to do.  I had a couple of friends recently say that the reason people have premarital sex is because they’re not focusing on Jesus.  “If people would only keep their focus where it belonged, they wouldn’t sin.”

Really??

Here’s the thing.  When I was 18, I absolutely loved Jesus and singing songs at youth group.  I also liked having sex with my boyfriend.  I loved the idea that I was wanted, accepted, loved.  Yeah, maybe I should have gotten those feelings from God and not a male.  But figuring that process out is not easy.

Even now, 12 years later, I still struggle with getting my worth primarily from Him, instead of my husband and friends.  Sifting through all the pressures of life to learn what to base your value on is like going through 50 houses trying to find the right one.  It isn’t a matter of just choosing the best price.

I am learning now, that just as finding and buying a house can’t honestly be reduced to 30 minutes, following Jesus can’t be reduced to a list of rules or pithy clichés.

We have been given a reality show faith that tells us following Jesus is simple, easy, and fun.  It glosses over the hard work of looking at dozens of houses, imagining yourself living in all of them, selling your own house, the inspections, the boxes, the pain of moving and unpacking, the rejections, the counter-offers, the credit scores, the loss of property value…..it is an enormous ordeal to buy and sell a house.  It is an ordeal to orient your way of life around the life of Jesus.  But we expect that we can do it in a moment, that instant when he ‘comes into your heart’ and you are supposed to be flooded with peace, lightness, transformation.

‘You are a new creation,’ and the implication is that it is an instantaneous transformation, and anything less is an indication you are not walking close to Jesus enough.  Then we couch our failures stumbles experiences as sin, but in an ‘I’m forgiven, not perfect,’ kind of way.

Just fix your eyes on Jesus and all will be well.  Fix your eyes.  What does that even mean?  I’m fixing and things are still broken.  It makes sense that people want to sell an easy Jesus.

I want it easy.  I don’t want to struggle with, say, jealousy.  I want to fix my eyes, have that perfected faith and have the problem disappear.  I don’t want to do the hard work of analyzing.  Of realizing how I dehumanize someone by thinking about their things instead of being happy for them.  I don’t want to focus on the broken parts of me that make me want better stuff to make me happy.  I don’t want to focus on why I’m unhappy.  Just give me the reality-show faith already!   I want to have the 3 options to look at, knowing all the while I already have a signed agreement, so that this is all just a big show.  I want all my problems magically fixed because secretly I have this Book of Life where we already have a signed agreement – in blood. I want to bury my imperfections under a mask of sanctification.

I don’t want to bother with the daily, hard complexities of life.  I don’t want to realize that Jesus actually complicates life and makes it harder, even as he makes it better.

And there’s the rub, I think.  Easier is supposed to be better.  The message I picked up was that Jesus was both, but really, better is not always easier.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the work.

In some ways, the church has to offer a simple Jesus, a moral faith. 

If the goal is uniform belief among millions of people, you have to have a one size fits all type of faith.  Otherwise you have to handle all the issues and complexities on a case by case basis, and how is that practical?  The goal is converts, and not disciples, right?  The goal is a show that shows how frustrating, but easy, it is to buy a house, right?

Does it matter that we’re being given something that is not realistic?

The alternative – the open-minded, spirit-led, grace-filled, loving alternative might say:

‘It’s possible to be earnestly seeking Jesus and yet be sleeping with your boyfriend.‘

‘It’s possible to struggle with greed and consumerism and yet love God and others.‘

‘It’s possible to work out various amounts of pain in all sorts of unhealthy ways while at the same time trying to live your life in a way that honors Jesus.‘ 

It is possible to experience life in all the beautiful shades of gray and find Jesus in all of them.

All slippery-slope-ophiles would line up, stones at the ready, for that.

But isn’t that the case???

I can have a fantastic ‘quiet time’ and 10 minutes later be yelling at my kids.  Does my anger invalidate the closeness I just had?  When I tear my husband down, does that cancel out all the good I’ve done for him?  Is it possible for me to be following Jesus, and yet at the same time be frustrated because we live like sardines in a tiny home, and I’m an introvert, surrounded by noise and need for 15 hours a day, without even a bedroom to escape to?  I can know most of my frustration and anger comes from that, but there is nothing I can do about it, except to get better at being grateful, accepting it, and learning to be content.

Learning.  Always learning.

Can I follow Jesus while I learn?  Does Peter acting as Satan cancel out the transfiguration experience?

Can the deep needs of our soul, the complexities and desires of our hearts, be considered acceptable even if they are not perfect?

Can we tell the truth about what it’s like to try and learn how to follow Jesus in a broken world?

Can we embrace our broken selves as we try to rediscover who we were created to be? 

Can we say that Jesus is more than a get-out-of-hell ticket, that uncovering our image-of-God statuses and living into them is messy, complicated, and will take a lifetime of reconstruction?

Can we be honest about the tension that exists as we try to see our world with Jesus eyes?  As we acknowledge our own humanity even as we try to infuse it with divinity?

Can we finally tell people that Jesus is hard, but beautiful, good, and worth it?

I so often find myself wondering why I thought following Jesus was going to be a one-time fix for an awesome life.  But I’m realizing that really it’s just a process of learning how to live life in a deeper, truer way.  I’m being called to restoration, not a reality show.