I N T I M A C Y will look like 2 things: SACRIFICE and REDEMPTION. Growing close, deepening love, fully knowing and being known will look like restoration. It’ll look like the Word becoming flesh and moving in, like being naked and vulnerable…on a cross, like fighting death and hell to claim what’s yours.
3-Minute Video of How Our Intimacy with Others Mirrors Our Relationship with God:
B O U N D A R I E S are important, but avoiding pain is NOT the endgame of a Christian. Restoration requires sacrifice. It’ll cost you something to love others well. Sometimes, the biggest thing it’ll cost you is your pride. The children of Israel exalted the things God sent to bless them above God Himself (worshiping Gideon’s ephod to celebrate God’s victory, honoring Moses’ bronze serpent God sent for their healing, etc.). You can exalt the fences so high that what should bless you (boundaries) becomes an idol – something you trust MORE than you trust God’s design of restoration. Boundaries are good, but only if governed by God.
3-minute message:
Last week I revisited an old place with a new perspective. When I visited this time last summer, all I saw was all I needed to see as I stood at the edge of the property, now overrun with tall weeds. I peered across at the dilapidated house, now crumbling even at the foundation, with missing windows, dangling doors, and a sunken ceiling. The ugliness on the outside compared very little to what ugly memories it held, so my heart was gladdened to see it decaying in the summer sun. I felt God clearly reminding me that He was doing away with old things, the old places of pain and shame in my life, and doing something new and beautiful.
This time, I took in the same scene, only the house was even more decrepit than before, the master bedroom having collapsed into the former den and only a shell of the building still there. But, even there, there in the dust, in the remaining hovel that was once a home, even there I saw beauty I’d not seen before. I saw plenty of old things, yes, but I saw new things growing all around, and that made me smile. I saw several sassafras trees and saplings and even took one home to remind me God is still doing new, beautiful things in old, ugly places. I’ll be sharing more of these beautiful things in The Beautiful Things Project, and I want YOU to join me!
Everyone has a story, and it makes all of our lives more beautiful to listen. Join me in The Beautiful Things Project where you can share YOUR beautiful things, things others may find ugly, things you once found ugly, or things re-purposed or restored. Watch the brief video below, subscribe, share, and send pictures and/or descriptions of your beautiful things. Let’s commit to seeing beauty in every single thing!
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Grace Finds Beauty in Everything
I will restore the years… ~Joel 2:25
Today I’m sharing a videoed testimony of God’s all-encompassing grace throughout my life (begins after a 3-minute intro). When I didn’t care to live, God was determined to save. In my hatred and rejection, He pursued, and in my open rebellion, He forgave. He continues to prove to me, over and over, that He is able to bring such beauty from such pain and bring such glory to His name. God is still redeeming, still delivering, still restoring. Even in the ugliest circumstances of your life and even with the worst choices you can make, know that God Restores!
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God Restores!
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