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From Journal Entry: August 19, 2001
I used to think that the whole goal of being a Christian was to “lose as much of myself as possible so I can look just like Jesus”. The issue with this thinking though is that it led me to believe that eventually, all Christians “should” look exactly the same. This incomplete perception of God’s Word led me to comparison, measuring, and judging others; just to name a few of the detriments.
What I have learned over the years is that while Jesus is most certainly the absolute manifestation of God’s image, His Spirit living through each of us will produce quite an array of personalities and people.
God further cleared this up for me by posing this question: “Why would I go through the trouble of making every person with their own unique DNA if My end goal was to have everyone looking the exact same?”
The simplicity of this question and its implicated answer opened my eyes to my tendency to remove common sense from my study of the Bible and from my relationship with The Three.
As I read stories like Job and Peter, I see it is entirely probable that the devil has sought permission to sift me as well. In all honesty, I don’t want to be sifted! I want Jesus to fill me and just change me overnight so that I don’t have to go through that often painful process. But alas, I do not find stories in His Word to support my desire to “skip the process” so I submit and look for how I am supposed to get through them with my faith intact; what is the purpose of the sifting?
Webster defines SIFT this way:
* examine (something) thoroughly so as to isolate that which is most important or useful.
Through “sifting”, God is ALLOWING the removal of things from my life that, if left, could kill me, weaken my fatih or clog the flow of His Spirit through me. He is shaping, and molding me into the image of Christ and what He designed that to look like specifically through me.
The picture I chose for this blog is not random. I believe it perfectly portrays the perspective He has given me of my life in Christ as I have to live it out here, in this fallen, but beautifully redeemed place. This place whose very depths groan for the day when that redemption is complete and I will see and know it in fullness!
The hands in the picture are Papa’s hands.
The sieve is the filter through which we all pass through. Depending on the season and circumstance, the sieve can represent the devil and his attempts to distract, delay or discourage me from listening to Papa. It can be my own stinkin’ thinkin’; my yet unrenewed mind that still allows my flesh to rule the day or it can even be some unknown-to-me instrument He is using “to isolate that which is most important or useful”.
Regardless of what form the sieve takes, the most important thing for me to remember is Whose hands are ALWAYS holding it! With this perspective, I CAN DO ALL THINGS!! When I know that NOTHING is wasted in my life in Christ as it passes through the filter of His love for me, I know also that I can get through it! 1 Corinthians 10:13 guarantees my victory!
Don’t get it twisted!!! Faith in God DOES NOT mean that I can even begin to comprehend how He can allow some of the things that happen on this earth!
In all honesty, there are days where I think my faith consists entirely of sheer rebellion, where I hang onto my salvation for nothing but the hope of standing before Him and DEMANDING to know how in the world He could allow certain this or that! In those darkest moments I have screamed at Him, “THAT WAS THE BEST YOU COULD DO?!?!?!?!?!?!”
“Life in Christ” is not easy.
You try sitting in the experience and Presence of the most powerful love you have ever felt, something more real than anything you can see, taste, touch or smell and allow it access to your finite mind and soul; to change you, expand you, and fit you into what you know that you know that you know you were somehow always meant to be…
But at the very same time you are being stretched and sifted and reborn, you are still laden with your old self, old ways of thinking, your ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, justice and judgement. You aren’t yet fully who you will be but you no longer fit where you were. You can’t go back to Egypt or fishing or fighting so what do you do?? What do I do?
What do I do? I pick up new things.
I leave the provisions of the pyramids for manna and water from a rock.
I exchange fishing for catching the fish with coins in its mouth.
I drop my heavy sword and carry love instead.
Why?
Because I would rather make it to the end of this life, holding onto the hope that there really is a love so strong and so great and so good that will explain EVERY SINGLE THING I don’t understand right now.
Because, after my long night of siftings, rooster crows and unsuccessful returns to fishing, my new heart wants Him to keep asking me questions. “Did you catch anything?”
I want nothing more than to see Jesus on the shore, sitting by the warm fire of forgiveness, cooking a breakfast of mercy for me to eat.
I want to climb out of that sea, dripping with guilt and soaked in the reality of my weakest moments and hear Him ask me the question that answers ALL my questions, “DO YOU LOVE ME?”
(some songs that came to mind while writing this blog:
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