SANCTUARY

“For the Lord is the GREAT God, the GREAT King above all gods. IN HIS HAND are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks BELONG TO HIM. The sea is HIS, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our MAKER; for He is our God and WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF HIS PASTURE, the FLOCK UNDER HIS CARE. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” Psalm 95:3-8a

I love this song from my childhood that I remember singing at summer camp. Singing in the quietness of the night, crickets making their beautiful croaking sound, our camp became a sanctuary….

“Lord prepare me,
To be a sanctuary,
Pure and holy,
Tried and true.
With thanksgiving
I’ll be a living
sanctuary
for You.”

I recently read a dancer’s biography, and I found it very interesting that she said the studio is her sanctuary. It is the place where she throws off all her worries of her personal life, she steps in, and she leaves all that stuff out the door. Then she is free to just dance…..just for that couple of hours, she lets go of the stuff that is entangling her….the stuff that is making her anxious. In the sanctuary of the studio, she is free to be herself, and she is free from the weight of her worries.

Oh how Jesus invites us into His sanctuary every day. May we remember that we can do that with Him! We can set our “stuff” down at His feet, talk to Him about it, and be free from the weight of our worries.

Recently, in an effort to bring on fall, I spent time in what I like to call my garden….really it’s not a garden…yet! It is my collection of pots of flowers and plants that I am attempting to take care of….it is my collection that is teaching me how to take care of flowers! They have officially survived the Texas summer but you can tell they have been through a Texas summer. They are dry, some have brown leaves, and they are surrounded by weeds. They are struggling….don’t we feel like that sometimes? Dry, worn, choked by life’s worries….

So I tackled this task of removing the dead stuff, the stuff that entangles, the stuff that is keeping the flowers from growing. Sometimes I wonder when I am hearing God’s voice and when I am hearing my own, but I felt it was dawning on me, in a Holy Spirit kind of way, that just like these plants needed trimming back, cutting back, and clearing out in order to have space to grow and to become and to bloom into all they were meant to be, I need that too….

“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

What do you need to cut out in your life so that you can live as a sanctuary. Think about the place you like to go that is your sanctuary….where you leave life’s worries at the door. What if every moment could be like that? What keeps our moments from being a sanctuary is the weeds, the stuff that entangles us….it may be sin, it may be a busy schedule, it may be something we are idolizing….but Jesus invites us to give it Him, to cut it away so that we can BLOOM, BLOSSOM, GROW, TRANSFORM, and ultimately become the woman He has created us to be.

With that being said, I want you to know that you are already lovely, just as you are. Believing that God thinks you are lovely is what makes you beautiful. Just like my plants are pretty, but they have a whole lot more beauty and growth to come if they will let me cut away the icky stuff. He has a whole lot more beauty and blossoming for you…if you will let Him show you what needs to go…

Today, let these verses remind you, that:

You have a GREAT GOD.….THE GREAT GOD
You are IN HIS HAND….He’s got you
You BELONG to HIM
You are UNDER HIS CARE….

Let that soak in….

Prayer: “Lord, make me a sanctuary. Show me what in my life needs to go so that I have space to grow and blossom, and therefore bring you glory.  And remind me, day in and day out, that I am lovely because You say I am. Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true….with thanksgiving, help me be a living sanctuary for you.”