The Glass Wall

Every day, when no one was looking, the girl cleaned the glass wall. She scrubbed and she scrubbed and she scrubbed until it was clean. So clean, that no one could see the wall at all. To everyone else, the glass wall was invisible. Not even a crack or a scratch could be found on it.

Behind the wall was everything good: her Bible, Jesus, her relationship with God. You see, everyone thought that the girl had a consistent walk with God. Afterall, she was the president of her youth group at church, she went on at least two mission trips a year, and she wore t-shirts with Bible verses on them.

The girl used to feel close to God, but somewhere along the way, she confused her love for serving God with her love for Him.  She began to find her identity in the way that people perceived her. She gradually drifted farther and farther away until one day she realized that this strange glass wall had appeared and was separating her from God. No one else could see the wall, but she knew it was there.

She wondered what this wall was. Was it unconfessed sin? Perhaps it was her pride? Whatever it was, she had to cover it up. If anyone discovered that she was not who they thought she was, she would lose everything.  So every morning, she would sneak out of bed while everyone was sleeping and scrub all of the imperfections off of the wall.

When it looked perfectly clear, she would sigh in relief and go through another day, pretending that she had it all together. Day after day, this was her routine. One morning, as she walked up to the wall to begin scrubbing it, she could see Jesus on the other side and he was trying to get her attention.

At first she ignored him. She only had a few minutes to clean the wall before everyone else woke up. But Jesus persisted to try to get her attention. Finally, he put his hand up against the glass wall and for the first time, the girl stopped what she was doing. On his hand, she noticed the scars from the nail that had pierced him when he died for her on the cross.

Her heart was heavy with shame and grief. She knew Jesus had died for her, and she chose to follow him a long time ago. The girl used to talk to Jesus every morning. Not always about serious things- but about everything: her dreams for the future, funny things that happened to her at school…she told him everything. But ever since that wall appeared, she had been so busy keeping it clean, that she hadn’t taken the time to talk to Jesus. Every day he would stand there, waiting, hoping for her to at least look at him. But the girl was too focused on keeping up her good appearance that she ignored him.

But on this particular day, the girl looked into Jesus’ eyes and her own began to fill up with tears. She missed him so much and wanted more than anything to climb in his lap and stay there forever. She knew what she needed to do.

From the ground, she picked up a jagged rock. Taking a deep breath, she stepped back and threw the rock with all of her might at the glass wall. At first, there was just one tiny hole in the wall. But within seconds, the glass began to crack and it shattered into millions of pieces. As the wall crashed to the ground, the girl gasped in air as if she was breathing for the very first time. Something amazing had changed within her the moment the wall was shattered!

She ran as fast as she could toward Jesus. It didn’t matter to her that she had cuts on her feet from stepping on the glass. She ran and she ran, straight into his arms. Jesus picked her up and spun her around. He was delighted to have her back! He treated her wounds and bandaged her feet as they caught up on the years they had lost.

The girl was so happy to be back with Jesus, without the glass wall separating her from him. She had forgotten how much better it was to be in his presence than to be on the other side of the wall, pretending to be perfect. She was so excited to be with Jesus that she didn’t even notice when people began to walk by. Of course, they noticed the glass all over the ground. And they saw that the girl had bandages on her feet.

But the girl didn’t care. Now she realized that it was better to have a few scrapes and scars and be with Jesus, than to be separated from him and appear to be perfect. Because when it comes down to it, no one is perfect after all. Jesus loved her even when she forgot about him. When she defined herself in things other than him, he was still knocking on the wall, hoping for her to notice him.  

The girl’s life changed that day. She no longer had to scrub and scrub and scrub the glass wall to make it clean. Instead, she talked with Jesus every morning. In fact, she talked to him all day long. And every day when she saw the fading scars on her feet, she vowed that she would never, ever, allow that glass wall to separate her from Jesus again.  

Her life was so abundant now that she could freely admit that she wasn’t perfect and just dwell in Jesus.  She would never return to her life behind the glass wall.