Living Unfiltered: Bring Every Version of You

Growing up, I thought living a faith filled life meant having it all together. A perfect life. Follow every rule. Show up to church every Sunday. Put some money in the collection basket. Have a perfect marriage. Help everyone. Don't cuss. Add whatever version of perfect you can think of, and that's what made it faith full.

Looking back, that's probably one of the reasons I disliked religion for so long. It felt like a show. A mask everyone agreed to wear together. After all no one is perfect right?

I can tell you today it's the opposite of that. God doesn't want the polished version of us. He wants every version of us. And here's the thing, he already knows every version of us anyway. There's nothing to hide that isn't already seen.

So what does that mean, every version of you?

To me it means bringing everything to him. The doubt. The fear. The anxiety. The small wins and the big wins. The career stuff. The marriage stuff. Parenthood, school, whatever is sitting on your mind right now. Bring it to him and keep him in it.

That's the whole idea behind what we've been calling Living FUL. Faith Unfiltered Life.

Here is the verse that changed how I think about this.

John 10:10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have a life and have it abundantly.

Okay, let me spit this out before my ADD kicks in and I spiral. Two words in that verse do all the heavy lifting (at least for me they do). Abundantly and life. That's it. That's the whole point.

Abundantly means more than enough. Overflowing. Not scraping by, not just managing, not surviving until Sunday. Jesus isn't offering you a life that barely holds together. He's offering one that spills past the edges of what you're used to.

And life doesn't mean existing. It doesn't mean waking up, going to work, paying bills, and calling it a win. It means sharing life with God! Connected to him. Not a transaction where you behave well enough and he rewards you for it. A RELATIONSHIP.

Put those two words together and you get the whole message of this podcast. God isn't calling us to a manageable life. He's calling us to an abundant one, through him.

Here's where I want to be honest with you. This verse gets twisted a lot. Some traditions have turned life to the full into a promise of money and comfort, follow the formula and God will pay out. But look at where Jesus said it. Right after he clashed with religious leaders who were controlling people instead of caring for them. And Paul, who wrote about being content in any circumstance, wrote that from a prison cell. Abundant was never about ease. It was about depth.

So, if fullness isn't about having it together, what's actually stealing it from us?

Culture tells us fullness comes from adding things. More experiences. More followers. More freedom from anything that feels like a constraint. Curate the highlight reel and you'll finally feel full.

Scripture flips that. Fullness isn't something you build. It's something you receive. And you don't get there by adding more to the pile. You get there by putting down the versions of yourself you've been performing.

Culture says fullness looks like a highlight reel. God says bring the mess.

I think most of us don't hide things from God because we stopped believing in him. We hide things because we're scared of what it costs to hand it over. Scared he won't be enough for that one specific thing we've never said out loud.

So here are four movements I keep coming back to, because knowing this and living it are two different things.

1. Name the part you're still holding back.

There's a guy in Mark 10 who did everything right. Kept the commandments. Showed up. Jesus asked him for one thing, his wealth, the thing he trusted more than God. He walked away sad. Not because Jesus was harsh, but because a full life was offered and he chose a partial one. What's your one thing? Money, a relationship, a habit, control over your calendar. Name it, even if it's only to yourself for now. (Mark 10:17-22)

2. Drop the performance.

Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 didn't get in trouble for keeping some money back. They got in trouble for pretending they gave it all. That's the real danger of a curated faith. It's not what you're holding back, it's the show you put on around it. Find one place this week where you've been performing instead of being honest, with God or with the people around you, and just stop. (Acts 5:1-11)

3. Bring your actual story, not the edited one.

The woman at the well in John 4 not to sound judgy but her history before she sat down with Jesus was a mess. Five husbands, a complicated situation. That conversation changed her whole town. Try praying about the thing you'd never post, never bring up in a group, never say out loud on a Sunday. That's usually where the real conversation with God starts. (John 4)

4. Let your failures stay in the story.

Peter walked on water, then sank. Swore his loyalty, then denied Jesus three times before the night was over. Scripture doesn't edit any of it out. And he still got restored and handed a mission. If you're waiting to clean your life up before you bring it to God, you're waiting on something he never asked for. Bring the mess now. (Peter's story across the Gospels Matthew 14:22-33, 26:69-75, John 21:15-19)

I'll be honest with you, writing this is easier than living it. I still catch myself handing God the parts of my life that already look decent and quietly managing the rest on my own. Old habit. Hard one to break.

But every time I've actually handed over the part I was protecting, it wasn't the disaster I braced for. Romans 8 says there's no condemnation waiting on the other side of that. Just an invitation to keep going.

So, here's what I'd ask you to sit with this week. Not the polished version. The real one. Doubt included, fear included the wins and the stuff you're still figuring out. Bring all of it to him and keep him in it.

That's what faith unfiltered life actually looks like. I'm still working through what that means for me. Would love to know what it looks like for you.