2020 can be the year you look at your life like you never have before. Yes, I am already aware of the christian prophetic cliches about "vision" for 2020. Yeah, I get it. I am going to try my best not to do it here. From a humble christian perspective I want to go deeper, your soul deeper. I want to take us on a journey of true christian life examining and in the process enlighten and encourage you moving forward, so let’s go.
How have you come to see yourself up until now? When you get up in the morning and look in the mirror, who is looking back at you? As an adult what has your life come to mean? How have you impacted others around you for the better, for glory to Christ. And the one question I had to find the right answer to: Is your identity in what you do or have you found your identity in “who” you are in Christ?
The one thing I have come to a revelation about in my close walk with the Lord is having a healthy perspective. How I see myself in Jesus according to the Bible is far more encouraging and peaceful than how I see myself without His help. As human beings it is much easier to look at the dark side of life and think you have wasted time and opportunity over and over again doing something you thought was right or, worse yet, knew was wrong. For example, living with an addiction for years, or seemingly wasting years pursuing a career that you thought would bring fulfillment but ended up not being what you thought or realized one day you were pursuing it all for the wrong reasons.
But what if I told you that instead of a just a waste of time, you were learning about yourself and hopefully growing to be a better version that more closely reflected what “He” wanted you to be?! Look at it like this. A person makes a fire and gets it really, really hot. He sticks an unassuming piece of metal in it that contains liquid and pulls it out, sticks it in a container of gravel like substance then begins to twist it constantly and throw water on it. He shoves it back in the fire again, pulls it out and as the person “blows” air down into the stick while the glowing glob on the other end is being twisted and spun over and over while being poked and prodded and shaped inside a metal trough. Or maybe the artist takes metal tools and tears off pieces and shapes the remaining parts into eventually recognizable designs. In the end there is this remarkably beautiful object made out of glass in all it’s shiny colors sitting before you. Now, you understand that that beautiful vase or sculpture needed to be fired and shaped, almost, seemingly violently, for the process to successfully work. But after seeing it done once you understood and had confidence that the artist needed to use fire, and water, blow air and use tools to get the glass the way he wanted it to go. We get it.
But what if I told you that this could be seen as the process that God is using to shape you spiritually. You may think that you haven’t turned out right or may feel like it’s too late for correction. Maybe you feel too broken to be helped or fixed. Worse, you feel unworthy, but if you are still breathing than the Creator of the universe is still breathing into you. Life may seem hard and confusing because He may be allowing you to go through the fiery trials to shape you into a unique and beautiful being to glorify ‘His” design. But if you are bending to His will, then the living water of the Word is also working to help shape you. The scriptures are filled with stories of broken people made to glorify the Father. As believers we are made to shine bright in a dark world and reflect the Son!
Are you bending to His will and allowing yourself to be what He wants you to be? Are you seeing that with the God-given breath of life still in you He will design you with unique abilities and characteristics to be used to glorify Him? Your story isn’t finished or even shelved like an old book that no one wants to read anymore. You have a beautiful story to tell and He wants to use you to help others, no matter how far along you are in your journey of life. Become part of the beautiful piece of art called life.
