Stripping off.

"...let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us." - Hebrews 12:1 (Amplified Version)

There are some people in this world who just lift you right up. They challenge you and inspire you and make you hope and dream again. Sometimes, it takes a lifetime to meet just one person like that. I'm so fortunate to have a few friends like that in my life and I am so thankful for them.

I was chatting to one such friend a week or so ago about life, and she said to me, "I'm becoming increasingly aware that it is the things which present themselves as 'good' in our lives that prevent us from fulfilling our God-given potential." That instantly struck a chord with me. Sometimes, we forget that the things we need to 'strip off' aren't just the bad + sinful things we know are wrong. Throughout my life, I have fought for the things I thought were good for me. I have clung onto the 'good' with everything I've got, and the whole time I've been clinging on, God has been gently whispering, "Let go. Strip off. Never mind the 'good', I've got the BEST for you." 

If God is saying that to you about something in your life, just listen to Him and strip it right off. Even though it's sometimes a bit scary, the freedom and release you will feel will be incredible. God's plans for you are so much bigger than your own. Don't ever forget that.

Fingerprint.

So I was in England at the weekend, and when I'm travelling I NEED some music to listen to or else I crack up. Actually, I need music pretty much all the time or I crack up, ha. Anyway, I couldn't find my earphones, so had to buy some new ones at the airport. Found the most decent cheap ones I could and bought them in purple (of course). They are the kind of earphones that have a little plastic inline volume control on them. Anyway, when I was on the plane, I noticed a dirty mark on the volume control, so tried to rub it off. It wasn't budging. Tried scratching it off. It still wasn't budging. After licking my finger and rubbing it with a tissue and my jumper it still wasn't budging. I tilted it and looked at it in the light coming through the window of the plane and the dirty mark was actually part of a fingerprint embedded into the plastic. Someone in the manufacturing place probably touched it before it had set properly. I just thought it was so cool, how I could see the fingerprint belonging to someone I had never met or come into contact with. I don't even know what country the earphones were made in so I'm not even sure where the person is from. I see that fingerprint as a representation of that person. Not just their biological makeup and what they look like, but their thoughts and feelings, their problems, their hopes and dreams, the essence of what makes them them. Isn't it incredible how we are all unique? There is only one of you on planet earth, and there will only ever be one of you! Seeing that fingerprint made me feel so tiny. It made me remember that me and my little circle of friends and family and acquaintances aren't the only people on this planet. 

Isn't it incredible how one little grubby mark on a set of cheap earphones can make you think? :)

Failure

"Failure is not final." My grandma keeps saying that to me. It's only really in the last few days that I've actually thought about what she actually means. To me, it's something like the following...

Failure does not define you.

Failure doesn't take away from the person you are and the person you are going to be in the future. So don't let it!

Grasp the opportunities that failure gives you with both hands. Failure allows us to examine ourselves and to see where we went wrong and how we can fix it. Failure is part of the refining fire that we all go through to become more Christlike.

Failure is what Jesus looked for in people. He looked for the down and outs, the outcasts, the rejected, the people who had failed miserably. Can you recount a single time in the Bible where Jesus chose the 'perfect'? Nah, that wasn't His style. He understood that perfection is something that human beings created out of pride and a desire to be respected and powerful. What's perfect in God's eyes? Not us, but Jesus. If we lay our failures down at the foot of the cross, take on board the valuable lessons we have learned and accept forgiveness, God won't see us as failures. All He'll see is the gorgeous, irresistible beauty of Christ being worked through us, rather than the stain of sin.

If failure pulls us away from people but draws us nearer to God, it's totally worth going through all the pain and confusion and everything else that comes with it. Don't you think?

All that stuff gives me hope. If other people want to define me by my failings then I'm cool with that. But in the end, only God has the right to define who we are. As His child, I'm pretty sure that regardless of what the world thinks, I'm precious to Him. You are too - so start living like it! :)