Redeeming the Wrinkles

Seed:

2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 8:18-25; 1 Peter 3:3-4; Galatians 5:22-26

Plant:

When I was talking to my mother yesterday, she said something to me that I can’t get out of my mind. I’ve been pondering it, and I thought I’d share my ponderings with you.

She was telling me about a woman who lives near her who has dementia. Although she and my mother are acquainted, when they saw each other the other day the woman said to my mom, “I don’t know your name, but I know you’re a nice person because your wrinkles go in the right direction.”

Although dementia is slowly robbing this woman of many things, it has yet to steal her ability to see people. To see beyond the external to something much deeper. And she saw something in my mom, through something most of us lament over, that revealed who she was inside.

This reminded me of how our lives should be as children of God. People are supposed to be able to look at us, at our lives, and see Him inside of us.

Often times, it is our scars, our weaknesses, our circumstances, the things we may be lamenting over as a woman laments over the wrinkles invading her once youthful face, through which others are able to see the most beautiful picture of God. It isn’t our fancy clothes or salon styled hair or radiant skin through which others see our Heavenly Father. It is through the fruit of the Spirit permeating our lives regardless of those things by which they get a glimpse of Him.

Do others, when they look at me, see the mercy, grace, goodness, faithfulness, strength, and holiness of God? Do my wrinkles, scars, and shortcomings reflect His perfect love?

We aren’t going to be perfect, but I think that’s the point. We are all in need of a Savior. We all need someone to step in and fix the broken messes of our lives. But are our wrinkles going in the right direction? Are all the things that our Messiah came to redeem pointing others to our Redeemer?

Harvest:

Heavenly Father, thank You for our wrinkles. For all the imperfections in our lives that point to Your perfect love, Your perfect provision, Your perfect mercy, Your perfect strength, and Your perfect ability to redeem our lives from sin. May I continue to be transformed day by day, from one degree of glory to another, into the image of Your Son, that I would be – scars and all – a beautiful reflection of You to the world. Amen.

Home

It’s finally official!! We signed papers on the new house today! We started the journey of building a home and small farm on 25 acres over two years ago, and with lots of ups and downs, stops and starts, we’re here. We’re home.

Home. That’s exactly it. All of us have individually expressed how much it feels like home here. It hasn’t taken any time at all for us to settle in, even among the boxes and clutter and things left to be done. It’s home.

I was commenting to Bill today how in every house we’ve lived in, none has had the sense of home that this one does. They’ve all been nice, comfortable, even beautiful houses. Places where we felt safe and happy and have seen lots of life unfold. But in each one, there was always a sense that it wasn’t quite home.

Does that make sense to you?

As I pondered this tonight, I felt God tell me this is kind of like it is for us who follow Him. The Bible tells us that this world is not our home. We’re just sojourners passing through on our way to our eternal dwelling place.

Just like my family and I enjoyed all the other houses and places we’ve lived in, we are meant to enjoy our lives here on earth. God wants us to find joy and pleasure and purpose right here and now.

However, when we love God, we can’t get away from the longing to be where He is. No matter how comfortable or happy or settled our lives are here, we can’t shake the feeling that there’s somewhere else we’re supposed to be.

I don’t know if this is our home for the rest of our time here on earth. We’re not planning on going anywhere unless the Lord tells us to go. I am thankful that we are here for now. I am grateful for the blessing it is to my family and me, and I look forward to ways He will use it to bless others as well. But tonight, I’m also thankful for the reminder of the home I have waiting for me. The place He is preparing for me, that He paid for with His own blood, so that where He is, I will be also.

John 14:1-5
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.”

Psalm 84:1-5
To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

Revelation 22:1-5
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

A New Name

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” Ephesians 3:14-15

Read:

Ephesians 3:14-19; Isaiah 62:1-5; Ephesians 1:3-14

Reflect:

Next week my husband and I will be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been that long, and yet I almost can’t remember life without him. I certainly can’t imagine it without him, either. 

I often tell people that God used him to change my name. My maiden name is the German word for beer. My married name means “blessed one.” I found out recently that it is derived from the Hebrew word baruch, which means “to bless,” or literally, “to bend the knee.” God took a very carnal name and changed it to one that honors Him above all else. Wow!!

We see many examples throughout scripture where God changed someone’s name when there was a spiritual shift in their purpose and relationship with the LORD. We see it with Abram and Sarai, who became Abraham and Sarah. Then Jacob, who became Israel. Jesus renamed Simon as Peter. There are other examples, too, but they all have similar spiritual significance. They move from common to holy.

They are an outward sign of an inward shift.

What’s amazing, though, is that when we turn away from our sins and turn to God, He changes our names, too. We change from sinner to saint, from lost to found, from condemned to redeemed, from outcast to child of God.

What a beautiful thing that who we were holds no claim on who we are. What a humbling thought that we might be counted as righteous because of what someone else did. And what a comforting thought that we are loved, not conditioned on who we are, but because that’s who God is.

Father, thank You for making me new. Thank You for loving me just as I was, and for loving me too much to leave me that way. Thank You for giving me a new name, not one of this world but of Your heavenly family. Help me live in a way that honors all that You have saved me from, and created me for. Amen

The Potter and His Clay

“But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

In preparation for the online pottery show I had last week, I thought it would be fun to make my #scripturepicture posts on my Facebook page leading up to the sale using verses that talk about potters and clay. It is a theme used throughout the Bible, so there are actually quite a lot to choose from. And, being the over achiever I am (lol!!), I figured I’d take it a step further and make this theme a personal study for myself. Pottery is something I believe God has gifted me to do, and as with everything in my life, I want to honor Him in it. So I asked God to lead me to His heart through something that was so dear to mine. And He did!!

This verse from Isaiah immediately came to mind. It’s one I’d heard before, but never really gave it the time and thought that it prompts us to take. Like a potter, God created each and every one of us with a specific purpose in mind. We weren’t haphazardly thrown together nor were we the byproduct of afterthought or a random happenstance. We are an intentional part of God’s creation, first and foremost made for relationship with our Creator.

In John’s Gospel account, we find a simple summary of God’s creative process as laid out in Genesis 1. The first three verses of John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing made had being.” John 1:1-3

God is our Creator. And just as a potter sits with a ball of clay and decides what he’s going to make, God had a plan in mind when He made each one of us. We are indeed the work of His hands. Through His Word – Yeshua – He spoke us into being.

There are many scriptures that speak to the majesty of our Creator. Ones that magnify just how powerful He is and how little we are. Job 38 is a really good place to go if ever we find our heads have grown a little too big. Here’s just a little of what it has to say:

⁴ “Where were you when I founded the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
⁵ Do you know who determined its dimensions
or who stretched the measuring line across it?
⁶ On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
⁷ when the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

But, once we truly get the majesty of God, Isaiah 64:8 becomes one of those scriptures that doesn’t require a lot of bible study. We don’t need to do word studies or contextual and cultural research. It is one of those “sit in His presence and let His truth wash over you” kind of verses. It requires of us only quietness, stillness, and a heart eager for Him. If God can speak us into existence, He can certainly speak His truth into our hearts.

So this week, find some time to be quiet and still in the presence of the Creator of the Universe. Because he loves little ole’ you.