BECOMING

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy, and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND. THEN YOU WILL BE ABLE TO TEST AND APPROVE WHAT GOD’S WILL IS – HIS GOOD, PLEASING, AND PERFECT WILL.” Romans 12:1-2

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows FAVOR and honor; NO GOOD THING DOES HE WITHHOLD FROM THOSE WHOSE WALK IS BLAMELESS. O Lord Almighty, BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO TRUSTS IN YOU.” Psalm 84:11-12

Today I want to remind you that you are a beautiful work in progress. When your own critical thoughts want to condemn you and point out your failures, let the Lord remind you how far you’ve come. When the enemy tries to get you down because you are stuck in the same cycle of bad habits, let the Lord’s truth and His Word remind you that He is shaping and forming you into the woman He designed you to be.  Let His Spirit be your compass as He guides you and helps you navigate through life.  How often do we wonder what God’s will is for us in a particular decision or endeavor?  Let that restless feeling lead you to spend time with the One who is weaving your life together into something beautiful.  Sometimes I feel like a mess!  I start thinking, “Here I go again, struggling with the same stuff, the same issues…”  But I have to remember that God sees it differently….He sees a BEAUTIFUL mess, and He takes it and is turning it into a beautiful masterpiece.

Just as we work on a ballet….when we first learn the choreography, it feels rough, hard, and not pretty!  It’s a big mess!  We are off the music, not in sync with our partner, and in general, we just do not know it well enough to perform it.  So the process begins…day in and day out, we refine it…sometimes we make the same mistakes over and over again.  Thankfully, our teacher or our director, keeps correcting us, and slowly but surely, we start to fix things.  Over weeks of rehearsing, this beautiful mess starts becoming something truly beautiful….it becomes focused, clean, sharp and effortless-looking.  What seemed so hard, messy, and unpolished before, has now become something beautiful, polished, clean, and stunning.  Add the lights, live music, an audience, costumes, and make-up, and that beautiful mess becomes a beautiful masterpiece.  So when you feel like a  mess, which we all do at times, remember that you are not where you were a year ago.  You are growing, God is shaping you, and His strength and power are turning Your weaknesses into strengths.  Remember to draw close to Him to allow Him to remold your thinking and therefore to shape your desires and ultimately so you can know His will in the big and little decisions that are coming up.  And remember that as we trust in Him, we are blessed, and He will not withhold good things from His children.  How sweet the thought that we can trust that His will is good, pleasing and perfect.

Prayer: “Lord, when I feel like a mess, remind me that You see me as a beautiful mess, BECOMING a beautiful masterpiece.  Thank You that you weave it all together into something beautiful.”