Unrecognizable

The comment:

I'm really working on being content, being present, and embracing the things God has for me right now, right here...I think a lot of the trust really comes from that idea of "blooming where you are planted." Like being faithful with the opportunities God gives me today...and knowing he will give me the next ones. It helps me not miss all the exciting stuff here and now. 

The other day someone asked me about some of this..and I started explaining and I was so happy/excited.. I think they thought I was kidding...

It's those reactions from people you haven't seen/talked to in a while that show growth, you know... in whatever area. Like when someone slowly looses weight...it is always the person you haven't seen that it is most noticeable to. 

I feel like I'm always posting people's questions and struggles that unveil our imperfections and our attempts to make it through each day when, in reality, we have no idea what in the world we're even doing most of the time. Hopefully, through all of it, you know you aren't alone as you process, over-analyze and do crazy things. Today, though, I wanted you to be encouraged by someone I talked to recently who has it all figured out.

Okay, not really (because, who does...), but I wanted to extend hope from someone else's words. That there's a steady assurance that can arise in trusting the Lord right where you are. There doesn't need to be answers to your thousands of questions about what's next (in any area of life), but seizing the moments before you instead. Living in the present, not the future...not the past.

I also want to encourage you that, oftentimes, change doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes it's slow and gradual- so slow you don't even know it's happening. Sometimes, like my friend said, you lose some weight over a long stretch of time and you hardly even notice until you're reunited with an old buddy and they immediately go on and on about how great and thin you look. Sometimes it's from a parent when you go home after months or years of being away. Suddenly you're serving them instead of demanding that they serve you. It's not anything unnatural to you at this point-it just seems like the right thing to do, a way to bless them. But, when they're used to a selfish teenager who lived in their house for several years, this slow and gradual change (that might have taken ten years) seems like a miracle!

And I guess that's the hope for all of us. That we're living, that we're seeking, that we're striving... and somedays we might be so ticked off because we feel like we aren't making any progress at all. We feel defeated because we mess up again and again. But then one day... one day we wake up and we realize we're a different person. We almost don't even recognize ourselves.

I think we're far too often discouraged that we aren't transformed overnight. We pray and we try so hard to become different people. I think maybe we forget that we're slowly becomING different people each day, despite our best efforts to speed up the process.

I can't wait for the day when we've arrived there...but in the meantime, I hope that we'll all be like my friend: working on being content, being present, and embracing the things that God has for us right now, right here.

You are changing, even if you can't see it.
You're shedding your old skin, one day at a time.
And one day, I promise, you'll wake up... and you won't even recognize yourself. For the first time in your entire life you'll be more yourself than ever before. It's the beauty of the gospel.

There's hope.
Always hope.

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Is Change Even Possible?

Are you ever skeptical that people can change?

I am.

I wonder how often our skepticism not only allows us to live in a place of discouragement and hopelessness...but also lends itself to creating a mold for others that they cannot get out of.

For example:
I feel like I changed a lot between high school and college. I felt more mature, I felt more servant-hearted, I felt like I understood a whole lot more about who I was and my purpose in life. But, every time I went back home, I felt myself reverting to this high school version of myself. I was suddenly selfish and expectant. I suddenly needed my mom to wake me up in time for things, I suddenly found silly reasons to have my feelings hurt by my older brothers.

I think part of this was the fact that coming home provided a comfort and familiarity that allowed me to be a more raw and rough version of myself...'cause I always know they'll love me unconditionally. I think part of it was that my family expected me to still be the bratty, selfish teenager that I had left home as. How could they know I'd be any different?

It took many years before I felt like I could really be more of who I was becoming around my family, it took time for them to see that maybe I wasn't the same girl I had been. It took me continually striving to be the same person I was becoming at camp and at school while I was also at home...even if it felt much easier to slip into that old person again. Change didn't come easily.

And I recognize how often I tend to hold others to this previous version of themselves.

It's really backwards.
I proclaim to believe in a God that is all about changing people. Eternal change, lasting life-change... but then I don't let them change. I question their motives. Are they changing for a guy? Or for a girl? Are they just appearing to change, but really the same person deep down inside? Are they just desperately wanting that job, so they'll say anything they can? Is it just this temporary deal, but give it some time and we'll see the old them resurface soon?

I hate this.
I hate that this is what I've become.
Haven't I truly seen enough people's lives drastically changed? Or am I still always expecting the worst?

Not only am I allowing room for disappointment and discouragement to set in in my own heart, but I'm also failing at offering hope to anyone around me.

I want to be a person who believes fully that people can change, that they can be different. I want to be a person that not only believes it, but inspires it. Instead of looking at the former pothead, sex addict, alcoholic, compulsive liar, pharisee and not believing that they'll ever change... what if I held true conviction that they can, that they will, that there's hope, that there's more?

What if people are unable to really change because we don't let them?
What if people are so discouraged and hurt by their friends, their families, their churches, their co-workers treating them like the same person they've always been...instead of with the belief and hope that they can and will be different?

What if we're doing the exact opposite of what we claim to believe?

I don't know about you guys, but I need to believe that lives can be changed.
I need to be a person who hopes...
A person who offers hopes to others when they might not even have hope for themselves.

Change can happen.

Let's be cautious with how our words and our actions may debilitate others from being able to live in their new flesh. And maybe, as we allow others to live in their transformation, we will also be able to take steps forward in ours.

For you, my friend, have probably changed, too.
Believe it.
Live in it.
There is power here.

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More than This

Easter is kind of this weird holiday for me.

While it's one of the 2 times during the year that many people attend church, it seems a bit underrated. Aside from church attendance and a plethora of Scriptures all over people's Facebook statuses, I wonder how well we celebrate this holiday.

Dying eggs, egg hunts, our Sunday best, a substantial meal with family and friends, a sunrise service, Easter baskets, chocolate bunnies, peeps... a mixture of pagan rituals tied into the sacred. Interesting.

In all honesty, I think I usually have higher expectations for Christmas and Easter. I want them to mean more...or, rather, I want to focus more on the meaning of them than the traditions behind them. In the Christian faith, this day is a big day. It's the reason we can live with any amount of hope... and we reference it all the time. I just want to do Easter justice... and I'm not sure I know how.

This summer we had an experience with 400+ students each week on the top of a hill with a giant altar. Every week I'd walk a little sheepy up to the top beforehand and I thought/prayed through what I was about to say to these students. Every week I felt inadequate to speak, every week I feared getting something wrong, every week... as I led this sheep...I'd think about Jesus being led to the cross and what that must have been like.

I got the opportunity to tell these students about Old Testament sacrifice. I told them about what the law required for unintentional sin, I described what the altar in the tabernacle must have been like. I brought out the little sheepy and unsheathed my knife, giving them a real visual of what it would be like to not only watch innocent blood spill for the sake of my sins, but to be the one who shed it. I subtly turned my knife over, so the blunt side faced up...and quickly slid it under the sheep's throat. Silence. Then gasps. Then words of accusation. Then realization that the sheep was okay.

But, I think we quickly forget...

...without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. 

The law requires blood to be shed.

I don't think we are very great at grasping the fact that we are sinners. I don't think I always believe that I deserve hell. Quite oppositely, I find myself believing that I deserve good things...and am upset when I don't get them.

Can I grasp that I truly am a sinner?
Can I grasp that I need Jesus' blood to atone for my sins?
Can I grasp that when He said It is finished that He meant it?
Can I grasp that I can't save myself?

I want Easter to be a day where we truly lay down our lives as we claim victory in Christ. A day where we really believe that the battle has been won. A day where we fall on our faces in worship because innocent blood has been shed so we might live.

And I don't want this to just be one day, but an extension of our entire lives.

Maybe I'm just an idealist.... and as a result, I live life in disappointment a lot.

I guess I'm wondering...
Will you let today be about more than the candy, the food, the company, the church service, the list of 5,000 other things you need to do before Monday? Will you simply be still and dwell in the fact that you are sinner, saved by grace, and then walk forth in the victory that brings?
And then, will you do the same thing tomorrow?
And the next day?
And the day after that?

Will you let yourself be revived?
Will you let the things that hold eternal value be the things that matter more than the things that will fade away?

He has risen.
Can we at least want to allow that to change us?

Clinging to a hope for more...
for more than glimmers of what could be... but, instead, a life of true radical change.

I need it.
I need Him.

Do you?

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