The Good, Bad and Ugly

June 21, 2012 — 18 Comments

Yesterday, we did a giveaway of Bob Goff’s new book, Love Does. I love giving stuff away, and you can enter to win through tomorrow. Unexpectedly, God really spoke to my heart through one of the comments on the post. Here is part of the comment:

Thanks for your blog. Your story and being willing to share it, the good, the bad and the ugly, has been most helpful in our journey. Some day God will allow us to share ours as well and hopefully all the mess will bring some good. Blessings to your family from the other side of the world.

I spent so many years of my life convinced that the “Christian” story was all good. If you were a true follower of Jesus, there was no “bad” and there was no “ugly”. I worked so hard to hide the bad. I spent so much energy pretending there was no ugly. Lots of fake conversations. Lots of lying to myself and others. Lots of saying one thing while really feeling or experiencing something else.

It wasn’t malicious or intentionally sinful…it is what I thought the Christian life was. Show everyone how spiritual you are and hide everything bad and ugly. There were safe sins to share; safe struggles to admit to, but it was a false authenticity. It was exhausting.

When did we as Christians convince ourselves that we had to hide the bad and ugly? As I look through Scripture there is more bad and ugly at times than there is good.

Murder, adultery, lying, incest, family dysfunction, pride, envy, lust…the list goes on and on in the Bible and these were the sins of people God used in the most powerful ways. Jacob. Moses. David. Samson. Peter. Paul. Lots of bad and lots of ugly. But lots of redemption. Lots of grace. Lots of God.

I’m not saying we should share our sin and in an effort to disregard it. I’m not saying we should share our sin to glorify it.

I’m saying that God can’t redeem what we pretend isn’t broken.

When we share the bad and the ugly, we allow God to do what only He can do in our heart and life: heal and make us whole.

You can’t redeem yourself. No matter how much you hide. No matter how much you pretend. The life you’re looking for is the life God offers as we become broken, honest and transparent. It is as we share the good the bad and the ugly that we experience God’s amazing grace and allow our lives to be used as a trophy of redemption.

It then becomes all about how great God is in us, and less about how great we look to God.

Do you struggle with sharing the bad and ugly in your life?

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Justin and Trisha

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Justin & Trisha are authors, bloggers, speakers and teachers in Nashville, TN. Their first book, Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn't Good Enough releases January 2013. You can find more info HERE.
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  • http://twitter.com/tamhodge Tammy Hodge

    i have struggled a ton with this. i just wrote about it this week. the thing that was holding me back was a wall of lies i had built around myself believing it was protecting me. protecting me from being hurt and being found out.

    when i began sharing my uglies it was scary. but it was also freeing. even better than that was i found others who had the same struggles. we learned from one another, encouraged each other, walked the journey together. it helped me realize i can’t hide and do life alone.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      “I am eager to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours. In this way each of us will be a blessing to the other”
      Romans 1:12

      Thank you for living this out Tam!

  • http://twitter.com/BrandeeLPs4013 Brandee Loftis

    I love this:
    God can’t redeem what we pretend like isn’t broken.

    When we share the bad and the ugly, we allow God to do what only He can do in our heart and life: heal and make us whole.

    You can’t redeem yourself. No matter how much you hide. No matter how
    much you pretend. The life you’re looking for is the life God offers as
    we become broken, honest and transparent. It is as we share the good
    the bad and the ugly that we experience God’s amazing grace and allow
    our lives to be used as a trophy of redemption.

    It took me three years to walk through all that I needed healing from and still am a daily work in process. God does redeem and He does heal when we give it all to Him. Like Tammy said, we can learn from one another. God never lets us go through things just for our own sake, there is a higher purpose to our pain. How can we minister to others if we never go through trials ourselves?

    Thank you Pastor Justin and Trisha for this amazing resource and blog. I have started reading it daily since my family and I started coming to Cross Point Hendersonville almost 3 months ago. This church is home now and one thing I love the most is that the staff and leaders are real people who have gone through real trials and are real and open about them. That makes this place special and it is the kind of church where we belong.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      That’s awesome Brandee and welcome to the Cross Point family! Thank you for taking the time to share that with us!

  • http://twitter.com/marciaramirez Marcia Ramirez

    What a great post. — Sometimes, especially around friends who aren’t Christians, I think I have to hide things I’m struggling with, or they will think that my God isn’t strong enough to help me through it. I’m afraid they will make fun of my faith or think it’s false somehow. “Where’s her God now? Why is she having a hard time if her God is so great?” — I realized recently that all of that was in my head. I thought I was “protecting” God (like he needs protecting – ha!) by pretending that my faith made my life wonderful and perfect all the time. And I ended up exhausted from the lie. Now I know I can show the bad and ugly and it’s ok, because that just leaves room to show God’s awesome mercy toward us, as well as his redemptive powers.

    • http://twitter.com/tamhodge Tammy Hodge

      I am pressing a pretend *Like* button on this comment.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      Marcia, first of all you are one of the most authentic people I know :) Secondly I 100% get where you are coming from. When Justin and I were separated I couldn’t hide it. Honestly, I didn’t want to hide it and didn’t care too. In the midst of that journey I realized that the watching world wasn’t looking for me to respond like a perfect good Christian girl should but rather they were looking to see if in my response I would be real. My “real” was ugly, broken and confusing but its in the pit of this place that the watching world gets to see God move. They didn’t see a fake me, they saw a real God move in me in a real way that could only be explained daily as a miracle.

      ~Trish

      • http://twitter.com/marciaramirez Marcia Ramirez

        You guys are a wonderful example of what can happen when you are authentic with your “ugly” and let God take control of that! Thanks for being real, so that others have the courage to do so as well!

  • http://www.eileenknowles.com Eileen

    Another post where I am nodding in complete agreement! We need to first acknowledge our brokenness. We need to be willing to do whatever it takes to get that place where God can restore us.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      Thank you Eileen.

  • http://www.facebook.com/DominicRSuazo Dominic Suazo

    Thank you Justin and Trisha for this post. Your blog has absolutely ministered to me as I walk through my own situation and failures.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      So glad God used it Dominic. We are praying for you.

  • Lucius

    Thanks be to God for putting a few people in my life to share the good bad and ugly. God truly uses His people to bring healing. He also uses you two bring strength to others to truly trust God with all of us.

    Not that you or any of us have this down perfect, but I am thankful for your leadership on the journey we are all on.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      Amen to that!

  • Christy

    Thank you Justin and Trisha for your amazing post. I always feel so encouraged and strengthened in my faith when I read what you have to share. To not only accept but also embrace each good, each bad, and each ugly is, I think, the largest struggle we all face. The struggle not only in bringing ourselves into closer relationship with God, but also in bringing ourselves into closer relationship with each other and our own souls.

    Only in seeing each good, bad, and ugly as it really is – a true gift from God – instead of what we think it is, can we accept God’s grace. It’s hard for us to accept and appreciate our faults and our trials, but I also think it can be hard for us to accept and appreciate what we are good at, and how that makes each one of us amazing. We can spend too much time stewing inside our own minds, focusing on our own faults, that we can fail to see how these gifts are what make us perfect. As you said, “It is as we share the good the bad and the ugly that we experience God’s amazing grace and allow our lives to be used as a trophy of redemption”. We have to start by sharing these goods bads and uglies with God, but as disciples we can only truly experience that redemption when we share with others the good news He has brought to each of us.

    Thank You and Thanks to God for your strength and courage to share with us.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      Thank you so much Christy. I am so glad that our posts speak to your heart! Thank you for your comments…they are so true.

  • Amy Jean

    Love this. When my mom died I would periodically apologize to my husband for my emotions and the way I experienced my grief. His response was always “Amy, there’s no ‘right way’ to deal with this, it’s okay.” What beautiful words. Lord knows it was an “ugly” season, but thank God that it showed me that being my real self was what would eventually help me grow.

    • http://refineus.org/ Justin and Trisha

      That is so very cool. He is a great guy, for sure! We all need someone we can be ugly with.