Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Disaster transformation specialist: God

A sweet reminder today. ..maybe a bit girly, but I imagine mostly girls read my blog anyways...
Sometimes I find myself wavering.  Rethinking and analyzing decisions, actions, or attitudes that I've had.  Sometimes I make poor choices. I let my emotions carry me away.  I get discouraged.  Or I just think things should have happened differently for me. But today as I was chiding myself, "silly, silly girl", I told myself as I thought of how stupid I was for having whatever bad attitude it happened to be at the time--usually some sort of selfishness or pride.
And then I stopped, and I had to bring myself back to a place of reflection. Does God see me as a stupid child?  Nope. I think He looks down on me and says, "Oh, precious girl- I love you, even when it seems that no one else does.  You're not worthless--I MADE you." And I melt.
What an amazing God we have.  In Ephesians it talks about the complete and total disaster we were before we came to Christ--"having no hope and without God in the world" (2:12b). And that, my friends, is depressing. But it's not over there.  Chapter 2 is sets of contrasts between who we were-left to ourselves and who we ARE--in Christ.  Verses 4-5;
BUT GOD being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions made us ALIVE together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." (Emphasis mine) That's it. Not because I'm smart, or pretty, or nice.  Truth is: I was a mess and God loved me anyways. He reaches down and picks me up out of my broken disaster and gives me hope and peace and a future.  Ultimate example of unconditional love.  One of my girls from Bible study pointed out that God wasn't surprised...when He chose to extend grace and love to us unconditionally He knew full well how desperately wicked our hearts are. Yet...He loves us anyways and desired to use us for His glory.  Yep, it's a paradox...but I'll leave it there for some reflection.