HAND ME DOWN
What it means to be CHOSEN
June 30th, 2023
Colossians 3:12-14, ‘So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.’ (MSG)
Bloom Where You Are Planted
Psalm 16:6a, ‘The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.’
A friend said to me recently that she believes every addiction happens when someone does not have any self-worth. It makes a lot of sense to me. Whatever is planted is what sprouts and grows, right? It is the same with mankind. What is planted inside of each of us, allowed to root and take hold, is what will push through the exterior and come forth.
An apple tree will never bear oranges, nor if we sow in anger, surely kindness will not spring up. So, if negativity is what is planted, we shouldn’t think positivity will flourish. If someone is told they aren’t enough and aren’t worth much and have little to no value, then what comes up from that dirt is an incessant need to become worthy and feel valued no matter the cost. And the fundamental price of trying to become valuable during seasons of insignificance usually leads to bottomless holes that are unable to be filled, even though we try to fill the voids with anything and everything we can get our hands and our eyes on. Thus, the addictions. Always striving to be something we were never created to be can cause such self-degradation and self-inflicted wounds; many which may never heal.
God created each human with a God-sized, God-shaped hole inside of each one of us—only to be filled by Him. He knows what it takes to saturate the well inside of us, to occupy the hollow where He alone can dwell. Yet we try desperately to fill that void with everything other than Who it was meant to be filled by.
I am so grateful to a Holy God for allowing me glimpses through His lens of myself and of others. I have felt like a hand-me-down most of my life, and I know I haven’t done enough to build others up, so they can see themselves through God’s lens, instead of the world’s. We have the capacity to install inside of anyone we meet, the ability to see themselves as valuable. In fact, the Lord placed so much worth on His children that He gave His Son as a ransom to cover the penalty my addictions cost. He is Master Gardner, and He is tending to the garden of your soil (soul) and mine, with His desire to produce something beautiful and plentiful and fruitful, out of amazing fertility, not useless futility. So, Beautiful You, you are so worth it. You are so powerful and lovely, and you are more than enough.
you are His REMNANT
