Upside down and inside out

My world has been turned upside down and inside out. I suddenly see that the hope and joy I have been content with is a mere fraction of what is available to me. For years I have been striving and struggling to come to terms with my brokenness and to walk in healing and redemption. In this pursuit I have owned my brokenness and swallowed it and allowed it to identify me. This weekend I was shown that I can have more than that… that I am more than that. And that to settle for an identity rooted in brokenness is to neglect the abundance of what Christ accomplished on the cross. He came that we might be whole, that we might live in the fullness of Him… in his very image. And he is not broken. He became broken and humble for a time, but he did not stay that way. And the reason he did humble himself and come as a man was so that we would not have to be stuck in brokenness. WE DON’T HAVE TO BE STUCK IN BROKENNESS!

I have never been a naturally enthusiastic or positive person. I have been skeptical and wary and cynical and have expected the worst and have not been surprised when it happens. But this truth that’s stirring in me – it makes me feel like a new creature in a way I haven’t felt since I first received salvation. I feel an unfamiliar urge to shout and laugh and proclaim the great goodness of my God. Something is most certainly going to burst from my eye sockets! I feel like I’ve been handed the gift of salvation all over again. The Good News just became really good news… news that actually transforms everything about me instead of just covering and justifying the old broken version of me. And this truth is expanding somewhere deep in me, stirring and brewing and I’m thinking it might not be containable for much longer.

I believe that my time spent dwelling in my brokenness was necessary. I believe that the grace afforded to me for all those years was my portion, it was sufficient for me then and there. But I’m stepping into something new, and as it is being revealed to me I am desiring something more than what has been enough. I am no longer content – I want more. I believe that more is mine for the claiming. 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 says; “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” God is moving me into the NOW even as I inhabit this body and this earth. He is replacing the partial with the perfect. He is replacing the dim image in the mirror with the power of his face in front of mine. And if that doesn’t change everything, nothing will.