Broken Ones

I'm really praying that in my year growing at Bible college, God will really begin to open my eyes to the direction he has for me and the things he wants me to do. Yes, there are things I'd love to do. But I can't confirm that those are HIS plans just yet.

I know there is one thing He has for me to do, but the task will take discernment and growing and maturity to walk more deeply into. That task to love the lost and broken. It's not that I'm sitting here trying to make it seem like this complicated thing I need to study for or research, but I just know I need more transformation to be more efficient in this calling.

I found in Mark where Jesus healed a man of leprosy.

Mark 1:40-42

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

Leprosy was seen as a curse in the days of Jesus. The lepers were those cast out of the city to live in isolation. Completely abandoned and condemned. And yet Jesus was filled with compassion and love for the very ones even the Pharisees and "righteous people" despised to go near.

I want to go after these people. The condemned and unloved. The untouchable people. The people the Church has not yet been able to get to. The people everyone just assumed would go to Hell, I want to show them the power of Jesus and the eternal life he has to offer. The unchurched.

If I'm to be anything like Jesus, then this IS my task and calling. There is no other choice, no other way. I pray Jesus open my eyes to these people and fill me with compassion for them. I pray I'll become more and more like him to draw more and more of the lost to Him.

A new song recently came out that I seriously love called "The Broken Ones" by Dia Frampton. So good.

"I can't help it, I love the broken ones. The ones who need the most patching up. The ones who've, never been loved, never been loved, never been loved. And oh maybe I see a part of me in them. The missing piece always trying to fit in. The shattered heart, hungry for a home. No you're not alone, I love the broken ones."

I love the broken ones.

Spectacles

The way I see myself is so distorted sometimes. I'm too fat, my hair looks a mess, my legs aren't long enough, my hands look disgusting, and clothes just never looks right on me.


Then those thoughts turn into, "I'm worthless. I'm not enough. I can't compare."


The past week or two, these lies have been knocking at my door, making me wish I was someone else. Wishing I was more that, and less this.


This morning I finally decided to open my Bible. I haven't been avoiding it, but I definitely haven't been running to it. With the hustle and bustle of this week, it's been easy to put it off and just grovel in my feelings and deceptions. In my head, I know the answer is there, but my selfishness gets in the way.


As I'm reading, it finally clicks. I realize it actually isn't about how I see myself. It actually isn't about me at all.


Song of Solomon 4:7
All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.


Psalm 45:11
The KING is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your Lord.


The Lord's truth finally got to my heart. It's how he sees me. I had to have that moment where I confessed, "God, I don't feel beautiful and it's hard to see myself this way, but because you said so, I will believe it." It's his truth that has to trump my feelings. It's his spectacles that I see through, not my own.


I love the scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie, where Lucy tries to change herself to Susan and then immediately meets Aslan after realizing her mistake.


Aslan: You wished yourself away and with it much more. Your brothers and sisters wouldn't know Narnia without you, Lucy. You discovered it first, remember?
Lucy: I’m so sorry.
Aslan: You doubt your value. Don't run from who you are.

So many times, I want to run from who I am. I want to change and be someone else. Jesus tells me the contrary. He tells me that no one can fulfill the destiny has for me except me. 


I was in the kitchen making coffee, picking out every little thing I didn't like about myself, when Jesus told me, "You're like the anorexic girl who still thinks she fat! Lydia, Lydia, please, you're perfect! You're beautiful just the way I made you!" It hit me like a ton of bricks. He pleaded with me with his arms wide open. I couldn't do anything but run to them. 


The moment we get our eyes off ourselves and look to Jesus, he'll start to change everything. He directs our eyes and then shows us ourselves in our royalty and beauty as he purposed and designed us to be. When we get beyond ourselves, then we're truly able to see with clarity and then show others how to do the same. If I just keep looking at Him and holding His hand, he'll whisk me away to his incredible purpose and glorious relationship with Him. 


Those lies don't even have a chance to try and catch up. 


Philippians 3:12-14
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

New Name, New Adventure

I never know how to start a blog. It's kinda awkward. But I decided to start a new one, or at least rename my old one. I want to be able to tell about my new adventure coming up. 


I'm moving to Sydney, Australia in 62 days. January 17. 2 months. Soon. I'm going to Hillsong College to study worship music. I'm stoked to say the least. But more than just telling about all the exciting things I do, I want to talk more about how I discover more of who Jesus is in all of this. Sometimes I feel like I barely know him. And I don't mean know ABOUT him, but know him deeply and personally. 


I feel like I've put him in this box. There's only certain ways he can speak to me or touch my heart. There's only certain ways I can worship him or prove myself, as if I need to. 


I want Jesus to smash this box to pieces. I want him to completely demolish everything I thought I knew he was. Not to become something else, but to become more than I ever could imagine. 


In C.S. Lewis' stories, The Chronicles of Narnia, I love how the character of Aslan relates so much to Jesus. I know it's quite obvious the similarities in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but even in the other six books, I love how profound and relatable the character is. 

Aslan was great and majestic and loving and compassionate, but he was not feeble, nor predictable. He always went beyond the expectations or assumptions of everyone who came into contact with him. One of my favorite parts of The Chronicles of Narnia is when Jill Pole meets Aslan for the first time.


"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I am dying of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.


I want Jesus to go beyond my expectations and assumptions. He is the Ephesians 3:20 God that goes "exceedingly beyond." I need some "exceedingly beyond" in my life. I need to be completely broken and ruined so that He can build me up again. It's a scary and painful process, but Jesus never promised us things would be painless. 


However, that makes the reward even greater. It allows Him to take me places I'd never  imagine or believe I could go. It allows Him to do the crazy, incredible, mind-boggling transformation and changes in my life. It allows Him to show me his wild, all-consuming, and inviting love for me. It allows Him to roar in and show me exactly what his power alone can do.


After all, he's not a tame lion.