Humility.

Sometimes I have to go back to the basics.  This month has been one of those months.  The other day I actually sat down and started making a mental chart of the places the Lord was showing up, where I did not feel Him at work, the areas of my faith I needed to strength, what I was doing "right," what I was doing really wrong, what He was teaching me, what I felt like I needed to learn more about and the list goes on.  While making this chart I became incredibly frustrated with the fact that I could not find a place to fit everything I wanted to categorize.

"Hey Heather.  Guess what?  I will never work within the walls of your chart, so cut the crap you dumb human."

I have been trying out this whole "Be still" thing and it has proven to be very difficult.  It involves a lot of me laying on my bed, closing my eyes and not talking.  My mind wanders and I do my best to refocus, but more than anything it made me feel like I was not a disciplined enough Christian to simply sit with the Lord.  (This fell under my "need to work on" category).  Guys, this is a load of freaking poop. This past month I have been a fundamentalist Christian.  I have defined myself by my sin, I have only allowed myself to feel righteous when I was having a "good day," I was struggling to accept grace and lost all understanding of God's love.  This is not a fun place to be.

Essentially what all of this means is I lost sight of the cross.  Grace, righteousness and redemption had become such casual thoughts, and what was done on the cross is EVERYTHING but casual.  I got to this place because I was making myself bigger than God; I was telling Him that I was not good enough to be given FREE grace.  I wanted to earn it; I wanted to be God's friend, like we were exchanging favors with each other.  I thought my obedience to Him on Wednesday would make me more righteous than my mistakes on Thursday.

Humility is proclaiming who God says I am, not who I say I am, so basically I was being everything but humble.

I was doing that be quiet thing again yesterday and at some point God placed it on my heart to watch the Passion of the Christ.  Uhmm, okay God.  There I was eating my sandwich, watching my Savior die on the cross while sobbing like a mental person.  The whole movie I kept hearing God say, "You were worth every single bit of it."  I needed a real image of what was done for me, not just words on page, I needed to physically see it.  God has grace and understanding for that.  

Understanding the basics is crucial.

Being broken is more than okay.  I will always be broken.  I will never be unbroken. 

I cannot attain who God has destined me to be until I understand that I will never be the woman of God I was ORIGINALLY (before the fall of man) destined to be.  I will never, ever, ever be free of sin.  EVER.  Christ did not die on the cross for an already righteous person, He died for a BROKEN person.  Being at peace with my brokenness is a breath of fresh air.

 I am redeemed.  I am freely given grace.  I woke up this morning because despite my broken self God has a mighty work to do in me.

I have asked God to spoon feed me His word this week.  Yesterday He re-illustrated what was done on the cross for me.  If the cross has become mundane to you then ask the Lord to refresh and renew your understanding of what exactly He did for YOU on the day the veil was torn.  

Praise God, even on the days I try to categorize him on my DUMB chart.  

LOL at my life.  LOL.