transformation – rhythms of grace

Our lives should never be stagnant when we follow Jesus. We must always remain in a state of growth and development as He refines us to become more and more like Him. However, growth can be painful, sometimes even excruciating.

Growth means letting go of old habits and developing new ones. It requires constant openness to God and what He’d like to do in our lives and in our hearts. We must look squarely at our own destructive ways and intentionally replace them with life-giving ways, at the Father’s prodding.

He lets us see ourselves as we are so we will be motivated to change. He allows us to see the the extent of our brokenness and helplessness without Him. We have to get to this point in our faith in order to move into the greater things He has for us. He can’t use a self-deluded person to do His work; He can only use those who know their own weakness and humbly submit to Him for strength and guidance. The ones who know their own capacity for sin and realize their need for a Savior. Then He can do the real work in us as we put off our old selves and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-24). If we’re not open to His correction and tough love, we will not reach the heights He wants to take us to, but remain stuck in our own stubbornness and self-destructive ways.

This summer has been an incredibly growing time for me. And it has not always felt like growth- most times it has felt like retroactive steps; I’m overcome by familiar darknesses that I have faced in the past, and I wonder why they are coming up again. Why I haven’t moved past these things. I start to wonder if I’m just unbearably weak and incapable, a victim of my own mind and fears. I wonder if it will always be this way, if I will always be defeated by these things. That’s the way the enemy would like me to think. He tries to get us stuck in an endless loop of self-pity and fear- a victim mentality. If we remain self-absorbed and wallow in our own helplessness, we will forget to turn to the One who can actually help us.

But by turning to Him and facing these battles again (internal battles of fear, anxiety, purpose, identity, worth…etc.) I am strengthened. He has to bring me back to these places to remind me of my human nature and my absolute need to depend on Him. To remind me that without His love I cannot conquer, that without His thoughts I am hopeless. To remind me how empty I am without Him. These same issues (in different forms and brought about by different circumstances) come up again and again because I keep going back to the old ways of self-sufficiency and illusory control, returning to the place of believing that my life is my own. And that indeed is a fruitless and stagnant place to be.

Even when our circumstances are frustrating and painful, and perhaps especially during these times, we must cling to Him. The sweetest times of growth can be in the biggest times of spiritual and emotional draught. These are the times when we remember that we have a Hope so much greater than what we can see; what is evident in the world around us. And we can remember that the trials we are facing are going to produce something incredible in us.