I have sang that song for years, after all it is a great hymn. Yet, I never fully appreciated the heart or the message behind the song in my early years. Why would I need to come just as I am? Honestly, I didn’t think that I was that bad. Sure, I read, and I knew I should agree with Paul that I was the worst of all sinners, after all if you have committed one sin you have committed them all. Yet, often times I didn’t think my sin was severe enough and I believed that I wasn’t really bad.  I didn’t need to hang my head in shame because I was ok.  Sure, I could willingly admit that I was not sinless, but I didn’t really believe that my sins deserved severe judgement. My plea before God went something like this: “I’m not that bad of a sinner Lord, but I need your forgiveness.” So self-righteous and I just didn’t see it. Since I was OK in my mind with who I was, coming to the Lord was not something I feared. I could approach him boldly. It was all too easy when I didn’t think I had anything to be ashamed of or embarrassed by.  So why would coming just as I am even be important? From that place I didn’t understand the true point of the Just as I am hymn, but I do now. (And just for the record I was completely in the wrong with my attitude, even then I was unworthy)

Things happened in my life, and now I no longer feel self-righteous or as if I am good at all.  I have been in desperate places. Yes, I have lost all will to not sin. I stopped caring and wondered why it ever mattered. I would have loved to escape my personal hell and damn the consequences. I just wanted to do anything to not feel in those excruciating moments. This was not a place I was familiar with because I had been saved as a child and had for the most part followed the accepted path.  “How did I end up here?”, I asked myself. Life happened and I found myself in that dark place.  Humbled and in great need of a God who says come just as you are. 

Because of my lifelong relationship with God, I knew I should do something different. That I should not think the things I was thinking, do the things I was doing, or seek on my own to remedy the pain.  I knew that I should only seek God and that I should seek him first. I knew that anything I did or tried to do to remedy my pain would be temporary, inefficient, often ineffective, or worse it would leave me hurting more. Still, I found myself completely broken and filled with heartache and grief, desperate for relief and not caring how I got it. 

In that place, I finally understood what it meant to come just as I am. Worthless, faithless, doubtful, and conflicted, even like this, perhaps even more so, it was imperative that I still went to God.  Without any defense for my actions and choices and clinging tightly to the promises that he died for me and that he still wanted me. Though I was in conflict, and I had more doubts and questions than I could count, I knew I should still come. In spite of the fact that I’d been seeking mostly unsuccessfully to paralyze myself and numb the pain I felt God wooing me and letting me know that I should still come to him. He wanted to welcome me, to receive me, to cleanse me, to heal me, and to give me relief. He was not waiting with a big stick to beat me over the head for all the things I’ve done wrong or all the things I would do wrong. He was not waiting there to tell me how wrong I’ve been and how it’s all my fault that I had the grief and heartache, even though it would be true had he said it.  He was not saying I told you so and that you should have just come to me first or done things differently.  No, he was just waiting there for me. Just as I am, a hot mess. Like the father in the story of the prodigal son.  He was there at the end of the long road home, looking for me to come, uncaring of what condition I arrived in and with great joy at my return.

“I know I’m not much, but I know you love me God. That gives me courage to come. So, I come to you God warts and all just as I am. Take me Lord I have nothing left but you.” That was the cry of my heart.  Maybe it’s been your cry too. Life has a way of bringing so many of us to this point. I want you to know that God wants you to come to him also, just as you are. He also waits for you and longs for you to return home.

When we feel unworthy, still we can come.  When we don’t deserved his grace, still we can come.  When we were not so bad in our own eyes and can’t see our own sin, still we need to come. When we have been what we see as unforgivable or done the unthinkable, even then, still we can come.  Only by God’s grace and Christ covering can we ever come to God. He made a way so we can come to him.  Just as you are, without worrying over your condition you should come.  God will work in you as he wills to bring you closer to his heart.  He longs to heal and restore you, and to bring you home. Just open the door, no matter the condition of your heart. He’s not intimidated by your mess, neither is he impressed by how wonderful you think you are if that’s your condition, because every heart needs him in it.  What a blessing to us all that he says Come!  Come Just as You Are, Unashamed, Humble, and willing to let him in.