Being tailor-made (continued)

Previously I wrote a post about being tailor-made, but I still feel like there is so much in my heart relating to the subject, so I have decided to elaborate bit on the growing process.

I feel that sometimes God needs to break us a bit in order for Him to put us back together again. It is not a process that we should be scared of, but it can be painful at times. As I mentioned in my previous post, we grow into our spiritual skin over the years and sometimes God needs to alter our understanding or beliefs, because they were formed by tradition or culture and not by Him. So sometimes we need to be broken in order for God to sift through the pieces. Like when making a quilt, He selects the correct pieces (revelations and truth) and discards the incorrect pieces (understanding formed by culture) and weaves together a new skin for us to grow into.

As you can imagine, being broken is a very vulnerable process. It might feel like everything is stripped away and you can't figure out what is new and what is old, what is truth and what is a lie. As I have mentioned before, it is a process. Don't try and do too much, too fast. Give yourself time to adjust to your new understanding and thinking patterns and embrace this time to rest in them. In times of confusion, don't try and figure things out with theological discussions, rather focus on the revelations and truth which you do know and which God has given you. Focus on the basics. God is love. No one can argue with that one. ;) know that God is in control of the entire process and He will complete it. God never forms anything that is not good and thus you can be sure that all things will work together for your good and according to His purpose. You are safe in His hands. Listen for His voice and follow His lead boldly.

Picture credit: Strawberry threads

Being tailor-made

Sometimes explaining an abstract concept can by quite tricky, so I'll start with an illustration. Our skin stretched with us as we grew from children into adults. Spiritual growth on the other hand is a little different in my experience. It is almost as if your spiritual skin doesn't stretch and as you can imagine, this could be problematic when growth occurs. You would literally have to grow out of your skin and in my experience this is how it feels.

Your spiritual skin is made up of your revelations, beliefs and understanding of God and His word and these shape and grow constantly as we grow closer to God. We go through different stages, sometimes we are comfortable with what we understand and believe and sometimes we feel challenged by God or others. We need to be challenged, because there is no growth without challenge.

When we feel comfortable with our revelations, beliefs and understanding of God, we feel comfortable in our spiritual skin and super confident, but when God starts challenging our understanding or increasing our revelations, we become uncomfortable. Something needs to give way, somewhere the skin needs to tear and new skin (new revelation) needs to grow, and sometimes old skin (incorrect understanding) needs to be cut out and thrown away. The only way that this can occur is when we tear the skin and make the adjustment. This process can be confusing and vulnerable. We all like feeling confident, but when we have a tear in our skin and a new revelation needs to grow, we might feel vulnerable in certain spots and maybe a bit unconfident and not so sure of ourselves.

But not to worry, as we grow into the new skin our confidence will grow again and our new revelations will inspire us forward. The old skin being cut away will allow space for God to pour new understanding into our hearts.

It reminds me of this verse: "Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:17 ESV)

Never become an old wineskin, God cannot put new understanding into old thinking, it will be too much for you to handle. We must rather keep our wineskins fresh, flexible, ready to be tailored and ready to grow. If you find yourself in the middle of a growth spurt, take heart, even though it feels like you are moving backwards, you are in actual fact moving forwards. God is taking you from glory to glory as He tailors you to receive more of His wonderful love and wisdom.

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Pack the problems!

Recently I was having coffee with a friend and we started talking about problems. We all have 'problems' and they are all different. I don't like to call them problems, but rather challenges. It might be issues relating to the past, challenges relating to current circumstances or a fear about the future, but the one thing that challenges do have in common is that they can cause anxiousness, fear or stress. Often we cannot do anything about the challenges we face. We cannot force a family member to forgive us, we cannot mend a broken friendship from one side or change the mood of a depressed friend or maybe you are trusting for finances, a new job or a new home. Often we find ourselves at the place where our hands are tied, we have done all we could do and there are no more options left.

While I was chatting to my friend I received this awesome picture in my mind. There is a shelf called God and we can pack all our challenges on it, like a row of encyclopaedia from A to Z. I imagined those old heavy books. Then the devil comes and he makes us worry about an issue which is out of our control or he makes us feel guilty about something that we cannot change. "Why aren't you thinking about that? Don't you care about your future? Who will do it if you don't carry the load? How is God going to do His part if you do not put in your time and thoughts? Should you not be pulling your weight? You deserve to get justice, why don't you approach that person?" There are millions of questions that he can throw at us to make us feel guilty and to convince us that we have to carry the books ourselves. We then remove the books from the shelf, tie them around our waist and drag them around wherever we go. We complain to people about them, we dwell on them and we reread the pages of each book over and over in our minds until we are so drained that we don't have energy left for anything else and that is exactly where the devil wants you, tired, discouraged, fearful and drained. The devil knows that when we are in that space, we are of no threat to him, because we have no energy left and our focus is on the problems and not on God.

The Bible says: "Come to Me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus says, come, bring your books to me, put them on my shelf, I know you cannot carry them. Take instead my yoke which is light and filled with peace, love, joy and freedom and let me carry your burdens.

Each book on the shelf has a time to be opened and a time to be read. God will show you when it is time to read each book and when you have the strength to do so. He will address the issue and instruct you to take the book and act at the right time. Until then, leave your challenges on His shelf and continue living in joy without dragging every burden behind you. Jesus came to remove our problems so that we can have the abundant life.

It does not mean that we don't take responsibility, it does not mean that we won't face challenging times, it only means that there is a time for everything and that when something is not in our control, it needs to be put in God's hands and not dragged behind us. In this way God can help us deal with each challenge at its time and we can be victorious in everything we do. Pack your problems on God’s shelf today and live free from anxiety and fear.

“The thief (devil) comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10

Photo credit: favim