Preparing for Easter, part 1 out of 4: Katniss Everdeen

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The Hunger Games is a very interesting book on several levels because of the huge amounts of social and culture concepts it addresses. When I first read through it, I was captivated by the author's ingenious first person, present tense writing; the story just flowed out and caught the reader's attention. For those of you who have never read these books, the storyline is basically about this girl who is forced to be part of a nationwide, publicized battle between teenager kids in a rural area. The last kid standing is the winner. Throughout the story, the main character, Katniss Everdeen, must appear charming and likable when she is broadcasted on television. The more people she can get that support her, the more likely it is that someone will pay to send her supplies to aide her while in the battle. So, just before the games, she goes through a bunch of treatments. An entire "prep" team is hired to beautify her and she is set up with a touching backstory to make her nationwide audience fall in love with her. The entire book seems to partly be about Katniss's struggle to gain followers and the different faces she must put on to keep her followers.

So, why am I bringing up this popular book in conjunction with Easter? Well, as usual, while I was thinking through the story for The Hunger Games, I actually found an interesting application in it. We can sometimes be like the tributes in the Hunger Games when we try to approach God. See, the tributes took a TON of trouble to prep themselves to look and act the right way in front of their live, televised audience. In the same way, we often feel like we need to be "good enough" before we try and go to God for help. We tell ourselves, "once I get rid of this one, sinful thing in my life, I'll be able to go to God as much as I want. But, until then, I'll just keep trying to demolish it."

It's funny, we can think we know the whole salvation story and the whole concept about not needing to earn our way into God's favor, yet we feel such guilt and obligation if there's something in our lives that needs to be fixed. Basically, we feel a pressure to fix it ourselves before we can present ourselves to God.

If you really think about this, it's actually very ridiculous. Let me tell you why.

Imagine that you have a terrible case of bronchitis ("ain't nobody got time for 'dat"... just kidding... I need to continue with my story now...).

You really can't stop coughing and you feel sick and awful all the time. This sickness has lasted for a few months now, and you still can't get rid of it. Some of the people around you are noticing that you're not feeling well too, and they tell you that you should see a doctor. BUT, you don't do it because you don't want to be sick when you go to the doctor; you want to impress the doctor by showing him that you are well, so whenever he sees you, he'll think that you are a good patient. So, because you don't want to see the doctor, you stay home and continue to fight the sickness by yourself. 

It's like that with God. We assume that we need to prove ourselves to Him so He will support us. But, we need to realize that HE is the one who can make us well; we just need to stop trying so hard to do it by ourselves. And, I even found a verse that goes with my story about this idea...

"When Jesus heard this, he told them, 'Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.'" Mark 2:17 (NLT)  So really, Jesus is saying that to follow him, we must have the constant knowledge that we are sinners that need help. If we ever begin to think that we can defeat our sin problems on our own without His help, guess what we're doing; we're essentially saying that Jesus didn't even have to die for our sins, because we can deal with them on our own. Ouch.  Come as you are to God to ask for His help, or as Paul put it,  "So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most." Hebrews 4:16 This Easter season, I want to challenge you to think about your own spiritual walk (I'm doing this too... just saying). Are you attempting to "prep yourself" before you approach the throne of God, or are you going as you are and asking God to transform you instead? Jesus sacrificed his life just so you can come to the throne as you are, so why would you try to do otherwise?