Read Micah 7:7-8
I was maybe 13 years old the first time I looked in the mirror and said to myself, "you're fat, you're ugly, you are nothing" anything that would make me see myself as ugly as I felt on the inside. On the inside, there was a fire raging & burning me alive. This fire was lit and active within for almost 20 years, until our Almighty Savior revealed to me the power of His mighty hands and quenched that fire with His hands. His hands squashed that fire within me with one fierce grip, a grip that holds me so tight I don't want to catch my breath. I feel safe within His tight grip. I feel power within me, power that enables me to know the truth about myself....I AM SPECIAL, HOLY, CHOSEN, FORGIVEN, REDEEMED, SANCTIFIED, TRANSFORMED. None of these things happen in the manner in which I think they should happen. None of these things happen in the manner in which others think they should happen. No, they happen on His perfect and loving time. He wants to be an integral part of my life, walking with me through every painful and tripped up step. He wants continual communication with me so that I may hear what it is that He wants! I get so bogged down with what others say about me that I lose the truth that He gives--that I am the daughter of the risen King and nothing can ever separate me from Him. He doesn't just tell us these things over and over again, He fills our soul with this unquenchable longing for Him, and if that longing isn't satisfied by Him we continually search for a filler. I don't want a filler, I only want Him. This is something that my flesh fights against, but my soul longs for. When I drown out the clanging cymbals in this world & listen to His ever sweet voice, the negative things I think about myself or the negative things that others say, they just simply don't hurt as badly. When I look at myself through His eyes, I'm amazed and astonished at how simply radiant I feel. That radiance is His Spirit within me. That radiance is His ambiance reflecting outward.
I am who He formed in my mothers womb--before sin crept in, before this world tainted my existence--I am who the Potter formed. I am miry clay ready to be shaped into whatever tool He would have me be. I am ready to be refined, to be set into only His transformation fire & I look forward to each and every change that He enables me to make. I long to be the vessel that He uses to bring glory to His kingdom.
Reflect on Jeremiah 1:5
What does this make you feel? Do you feel like clay sitting on a shelf collecting dust while He waits to refine you, or do you feel like you've walked through that fire already & are now collecting dust as you sit on a shelf? Or better, do you feel like He has a firm grip on your handle & can be used in whatever fashion He sees fit?
Reflect on Micah 7:7-8
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