November 8, 2012

• No Definitions

  I am so thankful for those times that God speaks to my heart in a way that I know will re-write my story.

  Today I was in my room organizing bills and mail and school work…and the whole time my mind was just so full of the whirlwind of questions that I had been asking God throughout the day, but not really expecting Him to answer.

  But then He interrupted me. That brings tears to my eyes as I dwell on that: God Most High interrupted my mess of thoughts to bring clarity to the rush of questions that had been weighing me down.

  It was just a few words, but they came with waves of understanding. I adore that about God; that when He draws near His presence alone can bring instantaneous freedom.

  You see I have been doing a whole lot of self evaluating the past year. I have been searching out my personality, my responses and reactions, and focusing often on my faults. I have been dividing my weaknesses and faults and tendencies into categories of “must change” or “this is who I am and that is okay.” My blogs the past year have often been outflows of this self-evaluation season in which I’ve been slowly but steadily trudging.

  It has been a hard season. It has been a needed season. I have learned a lot about myself. I have seen all the ways I don’t measure up written in book that I have had to read page by page. I am left knowing that I am an utter mess on my own. I am desperate, desperate for God’s grace. I am left aching for His embrace.

  But today God’s words to me brought about a new season. I know it and I am relieved in the knowing.

  This is what I heard whispered so strongly in my heart:

  “Don’t be so quick to define who you are. To yourself or anyone else.”

  He was giving me permission to take that book of my faults that I have been studying over the past several months and throw it away. He told me to reject it. He lead me through these months of seeing my weaknesses, and today He told me that He was bigger than that shameful book. God’s grace is so strong that He can take me and do whatever He wants with me. I never have to look at those unsightly things about my personality and feel that I am not good enough or that I am incapable. He can use me tomorrow in a completely different way than He used me today. That book defining who I am is only going to get in the way. Because who I am is beside the point. All that matter’s is who HE is. And He has chosen me. He has adopted me. All that I am is His.

  I know I’m not the only one that has seen myself and wished that I could re-make who I saw. Wished that I could rewind time and represent myself as someone different to people. Someone more spiritual, more sophisticated, more fun, more compassionate, more authoritative. But we can’t rewind time. And we know we would feel like frauds if we tried to falsely represent ourselves. But maybe, today, God wants to show you the same thing as He showed me. That when He sees you – He just sees you as His. He sees you as anything and everything that He created you to be yesterday, today, tomorrow, and ten years down the road. You would be blown away if you knew how God was going to use you DESPITE all your previously believed limitations. But I know that you and I…..we have to let go of all the hypothesis we have made about ourselves. In fact, we just have to take our focus off of ourselves all together. It’s time to put our focus on a perfect, loving, and fierce God.

  He has plans. And they include you.

  

  • 11:31 pm
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