Wound

I went to Dunn Bros. with my dear friend yesterday. Over icy fruit smoothies in the 95 degrees heat, we exchanged thoughts about life and the season Lord had been taking each of us through.

As I described the battle between my spirit and my flesh I've been fighting this summer, she mentioned something that struck me. I had heard it at least a dozen times before, but I never had seen it through the lenses she unveiled:

Paul had a thorn in his flesh he had to live with, and the Lord wouldn't take it away. Even though he prayed over and over for it to be removed, it remained.
But instead of moaning and complaining about the thorn, Paul chose to live humbly and DELIGHTED in his weakness.
He delighted in weakness? What? That is so absurd to the human mind. Why would you delight over sickness, pain, persecution, abandonment, or any other difficulty?
But Paul knew that when he was weak, then he was strong. Because Christ reminded Paul that His power rested on him when he yielded himself in all his brokenness to Him.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Just think about that. The Lord's power is made perfect -- flawless, complete, whole -- in our lives when we lay ourselves before His feet in all of our brokenness. When we put on a mask and pretend that everything is okay, we limit the work of the Lord in our lives. When we are strong in ourselves, the strength that the Lord offers is dismissed.
In weakness is where we are bestowed strength to overcome. Not strength of our own, but strength that only comes from the Lord above -- strength that is mightier than a thousand armies and fiercer than that of a hurricane.

After hearing those words from my friend, I realized that the battle I've been fighting has caused a thorn in my flesh. And just like Paul, maybe it won't go away. Maybe it will be something I need to face daily. Maybe it's something I'll continually have to surrender at the feet of Jesus when I wake up every morning, dying to my flesh in order to receive His power and walk in the freedom He brings
But you know what? God's grace is sufficient for me, and it's okay if I struggle. It's okay if I wear this wound.

It's just like Tenth Avenue North sings in their song, "The Struggle":
Hallelujah we are free to struggle
But we're not struggling to be free

I am not bound by my weakness. I am not locked in a cage anymore. No, I'm like a bird with a broken wing flying free! Although I am injured and my weakness drags me to the ground sometimes, I'm not chained up anymore.
Even though every day is a challenge and I fail more times than I can count, it's God's grace and an attitude of perseverance that keeps me going.

"For though a righteous man falls seven times, HE RISES AGAIN." (Proverbs 24:16)

Today I'm going to rise up again. Although every day is a battle, and this wound pierces beyond my flesh into my spirit, I will continue to let His power rest on me in my weakness. I will come before Him with a broken spirit and allow His grace to wash away any shame or guilt I feel.

Abba, thank you for weakness. For without weakness, my trust in you would falter.

Day #1: The Beauty of Rawness

This is the first of my summer blogs, which I am aiming to write DAILY. It's a stretch, but I know it will strengthen my writing and challenge me in communicating what the Lord is teaching to me with others. Every day I will focus on a passage of Scripture or a daily happening that takes place. Writing is the way the Lord communicates most clearly to me, so I wanted to increase my presence on this platform this summer to strengthen and encourage you wherever you're at in your walk with the Lord. I pray and hope my writing will be a blessing to you this summer, as I pour out what the Lord is going to be pouring into me this summer.

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I remember when I was younger and my mom would make me clean my room every week.

"Honey, it's time to clean your room!"As my mother's voice droned through the hallway, I would hustle and bustle in my room to pick the mess of toys, clothes, crayons and other junk off my floor. But instead of properly putting it back in its rightful place, I would stuff it under my bed or in my closet. My standard was that if the floors were relatively clean, my room was clean. No questions asked.

Later my mom discovered all of my belongings I would so cleverly tuck away into the corners of my room. I was disciplined by being grounded or given a timeout. Sadly, I did not learn my lesson until I was 10-years-old.

In the same way, we can be childish in the way we present ourselves. We can either choose to put on a mask and pretend everything is okay, or we can be real with people, even in the midst of our problems and brokenness.

In Matthew 23:25, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for their fakeness.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisees!"

You see, the Pharisees portrayed themselves like they had everything all together. They presented themselves as holy and righteous to the people, but on the inside they stank of greed, pride and arrogance.

They were fake.

I wonder, do I present myself to people as real and honest, or fake? This is what I've come to realize the past few weeks:

For so long I've focused on maintaining my "outer" personality. I try to fit in with the crowd by cracking the same kinds of jokes and attending every social event organized. I work tirelessly to present myself as the sweet and innocent girl that would never hurt a fly, because Jesus would never hurt anybody.

I've become succumbed to the sickness of striving, and it's eating away at my soul.

I strive to fit into the mold that others expect me to be.

I strive to avoid conflict.

I strive, because I'm afraid of myself and who God created me to be.

And this striving? Well, it's fake. It's a technique to cover up who I really am inside. It's like going through the motions without soul. It's robot-like living.

I don't want to strive anymore. I don't want to conform to the patterns of the world anymore. I don't want to seek to meet every person's expectations of me, because I wasn't meant to please people. I am meant to please God.

Instead of striving to fit into the cookie cutter templates that people have formed for me, I'm going to reach for HOLINESS. Instead of focusing on my outward personality, I'm going to focus on my heart. I'm going to focus on being raw and genuine.

Because you only know the realness of something by its rawness.

I'm going to clean the inside of my cup, just like Jesus said in verse 26:

"First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean."

And when the inside of my cup is clean, the outside will also be clean. I won't have to strive anymore. I won't have to try to cover up all my problems and mistakes.
There will be beauty in rawness, no matter how ugly it may be. Because when Jesus is at your core, shining out holiness from your inner being, His light casts out all condemnation and insecurity. He is your only standard, and you can rejoice among sorrow and pain.

**What are you hiding on the inside that needs to be washed away? Are people seeing the real you, or just a mirage?

Keyhole

A girl at work today was telling me about a tattoo she wanted to get. A keyhole on the back of her neck.

I had seen pictures of the tattoo floating around the Internet before, but I never actually understood what the symbolism of it was until my co-worker explained it to me.

She said the keyhole represents the opening of a new chapter in her life. A new chapter in this book we call "life".

I began to think about the season the Lord has been taking me through.

BROKENNESS.

I've been learning to let go of things in my past. And trust me, it hasn't been an easy journey. I've held a bitter attitude towards many things pressing on my heart -- things in my past I'm ashamed to come to terms with. I've also argued with the Lord and tried to hide things from Him.

I realized that I've been incredibly immature in my behavior. Why? Because the Lord already knows all of my failures. There's no point in attempting to cover them.

"I the Lord search the heart." (Jeremiah 17:10)

There's a point where you need to admit that you are weak. You are exhausted and messed up, and the only one able to take away your burdens is the Lord.

It's when we are reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that we can do nothing whatever that God will do everything.

He will run to us when we are poor and defeated, and lead us with strong hands to overcome. He is our strength when we are weak, our Rock and Redeemer.

"God is our REFUGE and STRENGTH." (Psalm 46:1)

We must give total control of our situation to the Lord.

Holding onto the past can seem harmless; but the fact is that the past digs a hole in our heart, ever so slowly but ever so deeply, that we become attached to it. When we try to let go of the past, we can't, because we're too comfortable with it.

We have become afraid of discomfort and uncertainty in the present.

We're frightened of being vulnerable, because being vulnerable highlights our weaknesses and tells others we have nothing together. It also makes us an easy target for people to hurt us.

What's cool, though, is that God sees it entirely different.

Once we are vulnerable, God can fill us and lead us to a brand new start into a new situation and a new dependence on Him.

He washes us with His love and mercy, and we become empty of ourselves.

"You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."(1 Corinthians 6:11)

The Lord gives us lavish cleansing. All of our dirt is wiped away, and he starts picking up the broken pieces and fitting them together into something beautiful. He's the perfect Puzzlemaker.

Let the Lord wash you.

In John 13, when Jesus is washing the disciples' feet, He tells Peter that,

"Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." (John 13:8)

We must allow the Lord to come into our hearts and cleanse us of all our brokenness from the past. We must allow Him to love us FULLY.
Let Him sanctify you. As my friend described it, "give yourself away so the Lord can use you."
When we forget what's behind us and reach towards the path the Lord has for us, we are turning the keyhole into the next season of our life.
Be vulnerable and allow the Lord open that door.

Broken

I wasn't expecting it; I didn't want to feel it. But obviously God had a different plan.

It was a week-and-a-half ago on a Friday night. Every Friday night, a student-run casual street evangelism outreach at my school -- called Encounter -- walks to the Block E district of Minneapolis to talk and pray with people who are partying and drinking at the clubs. I got involved with the ministry last year, and have been going ever since. I've probably been to at least a dozen Encounters.

This Friday was different. I was hanging out with my friend Becka in Uptown before meeting up for prayer at 10:00 p.m. We were walking down to The Beat, and all of a sudden I started feeling pains in my stomach. It couldn't have been the food I had eaten earlier, and I hadn't been sick all day. Despite the continuous pains, I kept walking until we got to The Beat. By the time we left, the pains had gotten worse, but they were still bearable. I hopped into Becka's car and drove back to school. We met up with the rest of the group at 10:30 p.m.

During worship and prayer, I began pacing back and forth in prayer, and then squatted down against the wall with my hands covering my face. The pains had become excruciating. I was almost in tears.

Lord, why am I feeling this way? I don't understand; I've never felt this way before Encounter.

Typically during Encounter, I feel empowered and filled with the Holy Spirit to go out on the streets and love on the lost sons and daughters of the Father. This night I felt the opposite. I was hurting and torn, totally unprepared to go out (as I thought).

Jake gathered the entire room in a circle for corporate prayer. He asked how everyone was doing and if the Lord was speaking to them, and I couldn't hold back. The burden was overwhelming. As I started to explain how I felt to my sisters and brothers in Christ, I started tearing up. I was surrounded by the loving arms of my dearest sisters in Christ. One of them approached me and told me that the pain I was feeling was for the people we were about the encounter on the streets.

Yes, of course! That makes sense. But why?

I started to grasp why the Lord was sharing a bit of His brokenness with me, but I didn't know how it would change my perspective -- until we reached the darkest corners of downtown Minneapolis.

We arrived in the Block E around midnight. My partner Becka and I walked to First Ave. right away. There was a heavy presence of spiritual darkness we could sense over the venue. We started to pray at a street corner for the brokenness we saw. After 10 minutes of prayer, we walked to the light rail platform near Sneaky Pete's. We sat down on a bench and "people watched" while continuing to pray in the Spirit for the Lord's lost sheep surrounding us.

A small thin girl wearing a tiny gold dress was sitting across from us with two men. The men kept harassing her, and she kept swearing at them all the while still letting them say these rude things to her. The group was obviously drunk, but it was still incredibly difficult to watch the girl receive this kind of treatment. There were similar situations everywhere we looked.

This Friday night was a night of prayer. We didn't get to talk to anyone about the Lord, but the Lord shared a piece of His heart with us. He specifically spoke to me about the unconditional and powerful love He has for His people.

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:8

God's love is INCREDIBLE. What sticks out to me in this verse is the extent God's love goes for us -- He sacrificed His only Son for us on a tree!

The death of Jesus Christ is the ultimate symbol of true love. He died for all the sins of humankind that were in the past, and were to come in the future! Every. Single. Sin.

This kind of love is immeasurable to human standards. No man can even love His wife this much. Although we can earnestly seek after the Lord and desire after His heart, we will always fall short of true love.

Just imagine the pain and the brokenness the Father feels for his lost sons and daughters who are still in the shadows. He groans at the thought that they have turned their backs from Him; Satan has literally shielded their eyes with a veil preventing them from seeing the glory of the Lord. Only God Himself can tear the veil!

But guess what? The Lord tore the veil on the night of Jesus' death.

"At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split." - Matthew 27:51

That means the Lord can rip apart the veil blocking every person's soul and spirit from experiencing the love of the Father! The Lord loves His sons and daughters -- for they were created in His very image (Genesis 1:27). He is jealous for them and pursues after them, but we as believers MUST be willing to obey the Lord and the calling He has placed on our lives in order for them to come home to the Father. We must "go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15). This involves two major things:

1. Sharing the Good News to the lost people of the world with love and compassion.

2. Prayer.

As the night concluded on Friday, the burden started to drift away from my heart. I started to feel relieved and more at peace -- but only because I responded to the message the Lord was speaking to me. He showed me His brokenness and compelled me to stretch myself even more as I share the good news with the people I bump into on a day-to-day basis.