“When we come to Jesus, we don’t have to clean ourselves up, we have to come as we are and give it all to Him”
– Pastor Joey Rafael (Paraphrase)
I was excited for Church. I’m always looking forward to Church, but today I was excited because I knew that God has something special for me.
I knew He had a message and since our Father is faithful, His message was exactly what I needed to hear.
I went through several things the moment I turned 22. It had a lot of things to do with my health, broken relationships and other things that are too personal, even for my six year old blog (six years, imagine, six years! i’m more committed to my blog compared to any relationship i’ve ever had).
I was walking, half broken on the inside and it hurt more because you know i’ve worked so hard on being where i am today and for it to be broken is just disturbing.
Then I went to church today.
Then I found out why I felt so null.
And it’s because i’ve been trying so hard to please God without trusting Him. I felt that in order for me to merit His goodness, I needed to sit down and deserve all of it.
I felt so constrained because I felt that since I’ve declared my love for the Lord, I felt that everyone was watching my next move (when they probably weren’t and couldn’t care less) but it was the lie that the devil was feeding.
I felt that in order for me to merit His love and favor, I needed to be one hundred percent perfect.
But that wasn’t the truth.
The truth is, no matter what we do, no matter what we say or how broken we are Jesus is always ready to pick us up, dust us off and make us brand new again.
And when I say brand new, it isn’t a one time transformation just like Iron Man.
It’s actually a series of transformations not happening all at once.
it happens slowly, often peeling off each layer of our ugliness until we see the person God truly intended for us to be.
it’s a continuous journey and just like any other journey, there are challenges, there are setbacks, but He’s always ready to pick us up.
Pastor Joey said all it takes is one step. one step of offering our day in prayer and the rest just follows.
So here’s to taking that bold step and resting in knowing that with Jesus, I don’t need a mask or a cover up, all He needs is my broken heart and my willingness to let it all go.
