How Stickers and Checkmarks Don't Change Hearts (Marnie Hammar, Guest Contributor)
“Showing up with nothing was how I came to know Him best.”
I don’t remember all of it — I was eight years old, so it’s a bit hazy — but I do remember the beaming pride I felt when my third-grade teacher gave me a sticker for a good choice I’d made in class that day. She told everyone why I got the sticker, and I believe I floated out to recess, the sticker affixed to my turtleneck. I may have expected an entourage.
The next week, another student received recognition, as these things go — except she got a whole actual entire book. I was so mad that I asked the teacher about the glaring inconsistency. A sticker paled next to a book! What kind of positive reinforcement was this? It wasn’t fair, and I no longer cared to be my sparkly, shiny do-things-to-earn-approval self.
We know those gleaming versions of ourselves, don’t we? As one who grew up motivated by sticker charts and personal pan pizzas and points to be the hallway line leader, it’s not hard to see where that dazzling version of little me came from. Stickers? Prizes? Sign me up. I knew the game.
As a preacher’s daughter, that mentality also crept into how I lived my faith. At church, I’d step into my Jesus girl self and do the Jesus things. I knew the right words. I served and volunteered and tithed. All the while, I truly loved Jesus — that was genuine. I just didn’t know Him well enough to know I didn’t have to earn His love. Box-checking and people-pleasing kept me happy enough that I didn’t pursue more.
It’s true, isn’t it? As long as we can keep the box-checking charade going, we hum along fine. But when we find ourselves unable to check boxes, what happens to our shiny faith then?
My husband and I were taken out by a season of debilitating hard where the checkmarks no longer worked. No performance of any kind would pull us out of the mess we landed in. All those years I thought I knew how this Jesus thing worked, and here we were, broken and confused. Something was missing.
As the elementary school sticker debacle revealed, checking boxes doesn’t change hearts.
When I met Jesus in that face-down season, holding nothing but desperation for Him, I finally understood that living my faith wasn’t about resolve and willpower. Simply following the rules and obeying the “shoulds” and getting the stickers doesn’t reach deep into the places where Jesus waits. With my old habits and tricks lying deflated at my feet, my heart began to see what actually mattered.
Showing up with nothing was how I came to know Him best.
When I laid down ritual and routine, He invited me into real relationship.
When I stopped doing things for Him, He taught me how to simply be with Him.
When I gave up proving myself to Him, He asked me to rest in Him.
When I hung up striving and performing, He offered me His peace.
All those years, I had missed so much. Our striving and performing keeps us from enjoying the simple gift of just being with Him. When we think we need to be perfect to earn our place, we’re missing the beautiful truth that He’s already given us a place. He wants us just as we are, without our checklists. Let’s choose Him, with our empty hands and open hearts.
