(This is day eleven of the Rediscovering the Christmas Season Advent Study that can be found here. You don’t have to start at the beginning. In fact, you can jump in any time or go in any order. Care to join?)
Read Genesis 1, Isaiah 1:18, and Psalm 51: 1-10.
Create a snowman, either by nature (if you’re luckier than us in the South) or by craft.
How is shaping a snowman much like what God does with us, at creation and in our daily walk with Him? It is a daily, hands-on process. God is intimate with us. He knows every bump and blemish we have, inside and out. And yet, even though we are tough to work with, He fashions us as He wants us… and He takes joy in the process. Joy. God takes joy in crafting me. That’s awesome.
Tell God how thankful you are that He shapes us to look more like Jesus. Describe a time in your life when you knew for sure God was shaping you to be more like Jesus. I know I keep going back to when my husband was in Iraq, but that was such a concentrated God year for me. He asked everything of me. He pulled everything out of me. He showed me how to serve, how to minister and to be ministered to, and reminded me of who I am. I really need to sit down and revisit those lessons. As awesome as the time was with Him, it’s not a “field trip” I want to take again!
Journal about your thoughts on being made whiter than snow. I’ll be honest with you. Isaiah 1:18 gripped me right in the heart. I know all I’ve done and thought and said. I know where I’ve been and where I am right now. I have personally witnessed God take the very worst thing I think I ever did and flip it right on top of it’s head. He forgave me, cleansed me… then wrapped that awful up in a package and returned it to me as a gift. I know that makes no sense, but He did. Every single time I think about it, it makes me tear up. If He had not let me experience that, I don’t know what I’d think. But every time I start to think I’m too far gone for Him to save, I remember the way He brought things perfectly to a point for me on the road between Indiana and Tennessee one day and showed me exactly what He’d done. It does not get better than God saying, “You are forgiven beyond your wildest imaginings.”
-JB
Jen says
Trying again… 🙂 Days 8 and 9 are up on my blog!
http://navigatingwithgps.blogspot.com
Dawn Lucowitz says
1. I never really thought of anything I created being anything like God creating me. But I like the image of Him working on us one at a time, and not mass producing us. I like that he has formed each and every part of us. There are spots that we see as imperfections that He chose to leave there for a reason. It is not for the reason I may leave them on a snowman (that would just be my laziness). I like that he continues to mold us and that we are works in progress. I believe this is one of the seasons he is helping me work on my physical body again. We are in the process of reshaping that part. No, that is not the only focus in this season of my life, but that is the one that has gotten the most attention this last month. This isn’t just for my benefit (looking better, feeling better, being healthier), but he has already used this time for His Glory in leading others I know to start to get themselves healthier. One of my friends has started working out and completely changed her eating and is already down about 20 pounds. Her physical appearance is changing, but so I her mood and attitude and that is affecting others around us. I love how God uses us to impact others around us while making us better at the same time.
2. I think with each move we have made in the last few years God takes that opportunity to really reshape me. I have that “down time” where I am getting settled, don’t have a routine and don’t have any friends yet. It is a chance to really look at me and my walk. It has also been a time to really focus on my marriage and how I can be a better wife. Each move has gone more smoothly with my husband and I am so thankful for that. I find we aren’t as frustrated and don’t get as angry as quickly as we had before. He has really been working on me and how I react to my husband. I still have a long way to go, but I don’t always feel like I have to get in the last word or I will explode. I also find myself holding my tongue better. Those times that I am not slow to speak, I am reminded that I need to be quicker to listen, slower to speak and slower to become angry.
I also love how each move has brought different people into my life that really help me to grow and reshape my walk with God. They push me and stretch me and then send me on to the next place to do more of the same.
3. I don’t know that I’ve done any big really “horrible thing,” but boy have I been a rotten brat over time. I’ve been a horrible gossip, I’ve had a terrible potty mouth, I went through times of drinking too much, I went through a dark time after grad school where I was smoking a lot of pot. I had horrible anxiety and worry that landed me in the hospital for a short time. I managed to dig myself into a stupid hole for no reason, but God not only got me out, he totally forgave me for all of that. It is hard to imagine the kinds of things that God has forgiven me of in my life when I struggle to forgive myself sometimes, but we are always hardest on ourselves, right? So, then I look at what it takes to forgive others when I feel I’ve been wronged. When I start looking at that, it makes Gods complete and total forgiveness seem so much more amazing. Something that I literally can’t comprehend.