Messy but redeemed

 

My world didn’t end up neatly packaged and orderly. I have an idea of what a perfect day looks like and strive toward it, but I never reach it because a perfect day is not reality. Part of living in contentment is understanding that our lives are messy, busy, and sometimes chaotic. The reason our lives are messy is that we are not perfect and sometimes hurting or broken. Our hearts and desires are often messy and at times pull us away from the peace that Jesus desires for us and the freedom in which He wants us to walk. That is when the enemy takes over. Every time I desire to do something for God, I hear the enemy shouting in my ears how unworthy and messed up my life is; and how ashamed God will be of me; and how people will look into my mess and shake their heads or wag their fingers at me. I feel ashamed. God created us not to feel shame. He didn’t create Adam and Eve to feel shame, but shame overcame with sin and led them to hide. We live in a sinful world. Jesus is not afraid of our mess. He wants to be in it with us and help us in the midst of whatever we are facing. The truth of the Gospel is that God stepped into our messy world to save us and set us free. God didn’t try to love us from a distance. He didn’t encourage us to clean ourselves up or command us to try harder and live a better life. By sending Jesus, God ran into the mess for us. Jesus did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.

As the church, we are not called to love from a distance. We are called, like Jesus, to be willing to step into the mess with others who are hurting and help those who are tired and wounded. We are called to be in it with them and point them to God. God called Gideon – ‘Mighty man of valor’ – when he was hiding from the enemy. God calls you as how He sees your potential not your past. Christine Caine says in her book ‘Undaunted’ – “God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.” Following the call of God on our lives – whatever it might be, requires exercising our faith and faith requires moving forward into the unknown. It guarantees running into the unexpected; the unpredictable; the outrageous. But it brings the miraculous. The Holy Spirit leads me to walk away from my history and be focused on my destiny. He reminds me that my blessing is in the doing and in my obedience.  I prayed for God to help me to be willing to become uncomfortable for the glory of His kingdom; to help me make room for God right in the middle of my mess. Faith is required when you’re in doubt, when you’re in want, when things are difficult and unclear. “Faith,” the Bible tells us, “is the confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1-2). It’s the substance that makes the abstract tangible. The evidence of things we cannot see. I realized how important it is that I run my race, that I refuse to focus on what I am not, on what I cannot do or what I do not know – and instead to lean in and rely on God’s power and His resources and His ways.

My prayer is that my familiarity to the things of God – attending church, hearing the word, worshipping with His people - will not diminish the power of my faith; but my heart will delight and be confident to obey the seemingly insignificant and mundane things the Spirit would lead me to do, that I will not shy away and allow the voice of the enemy to shut me down because of my mess. I pray that the Holy Spirit will bring me into alignment with holiness, righteousness and obedience to walk in His purpose; that my mind is emphatically clear of what the Father spoke over me when He allowed His only son to give his life on the cross to redeem me in my messy world.

Written by: Anu Varghese