Wounds

Holiness is wholeness...it is the Lord picking up all the pieces of ourselves that have been chipped away by other's sin against us and our own sin against others and our own selves. It is making us into our true selves that He planned for us to reflect His glory. These broken pieces of ours are sharp and jagged, cutting those that draw near to us. We inflict pain, draw blood, leave scars in the very same way it has been done to us and the cycle continues. But praise be to God....He sent His perfect One, His only One, His beloved One. This obedient One was broken as well. Fullness of God stooping low to indwell humanity, to save humanity. Body inflicted with hunger and exhaustion, emotions feeling the soreness of broken relationships, misunderstandings at every level.

Cruelness of rejection and physical abuse to the point of a broken death. Blood spilling. This wounded One does not wound. In the places that He was cut deep flows out the very healing we are all dying for. The fruit of His suffering in some mysterious, wild way heals us. Frees us. Picks up all the lost parts of us and gently places them back together. In this way the paradox of the Gospel saves us. 

                           " For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things.....making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death"      Colossians 1: 20-21

                        " Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed."

   Isaiah 53:4-5

So go to the stricken, risen One. Know your worth in His eyes. Not just the worth of getting you to Heaven or getting you signed up to help get everyone else to Heaven. Know the worth of your wholeness, your peace. That He cares deeply about your reconciliation....with Himself and with all others. 

Small Places

     How I crave the approval of man, the recognition of my spirituality, the significance of measured, noticed results. How I love to be spoken highly of!
But how to live in a way that I long to see Him spoken highly of? That I care about His fame more than my own, that I am content to work in small, dim places if it means the light of His pleasure and smile?

" It seems to me its about living each moment doing the smallest of things not caring that no one takes much notice of them. When you live in Christ, you live it for Him. He's the all we really need" Katherine at evlogiaonline.com

 This also means to me to not be ashamed of my weakness, crisis', neediness. These are simply revealing to me and the world the true state of my soul and it drives me straight to Him. That His power is made perfect in weakness. There is a little Psalm I have been pondering the last few weeks.I keep going back to it and turning it over in my mind, feeling that there is something very important in this for me to grasp.
               
                   " O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me" Psalm 103

Peace comes when I see myself for who I really am. When I quietly accept and surrender to the work He has given me, when I quiet my soul and rest against Him, allowing Him to work out the details and produce results. So I give thanks for these small places.