Redecorating our Weakness

We have had an eventful last 2 weeks. I am so grateful to finally be, mostly unpacked, and back online. Praise the Lord! So excited, in fact, that I am writing this using a makeshift desk from a box of diapers. In a room that I cut the A/C off to, so this should be eventful.  But this thought has been so heavy on my heart and mind for two weeks that I have been about to bust to put it in writing.

I have moved way more times than anyone should have to endure and in doing so I have decorated a lot of houses. I pulled out the same items that I decorate with, the same pictures that have been on every wall, of every home. We have memorized which pieces of furniture need a drill, screwdriver or hammer to put together and I could hang curtains in my sleep. So even though I was super excited about this particular move, I couldn't help but grumble a bit in my heart, a few grumblings, I am ashamed to say, may have slipped from my mouth as well.

However, it is usually when I begin to grumble that it is an immediate trigger to look for what God is trying to teach me. And yes He taught me a lot more than this, but this really affected my heart.

Next time you visit someone's home, or your own, look at the decorations. Not one of them jumped out of a box and just landed there. Someone specifically placed it there.  Someone personally took the time with a hammer and nail, or mercy forbid, the dreaded drill. But someone personally placed it there because that's where they wanted it. Where they would find the most use out of it.  Look at the walls, the foundation, the windows. Human hands have touched every piece, thoughtfully designed the layout. (Others not so thoughtfully.)

I have spoken with many people who have said, I need to get my life right before I come to church. I need to quit doing this, I struggle with this or you just don't understand what I've done, who I've been, where I've been. If God knew my heart, He could never forgive me. How could He use someone like me? Why would He want someone like me?  I do this or that. I struggle with jealousy, pride, insecurity, judgment, I haven't spoken to my parents in years. I've had a child out of wedlock, I'm an adulterer. You name it. The thing is God already knows!

Do you think you're an accident. I always come back to Psalm 139, "He knit me together in my mother's womb..."  Just as I take so much time to thoughtfully consider where every decoration should go in my home, God thought of you before the foundations of the earth. God spent 9 months knitting you, crafting you into the vessel He wants you to be. He has allowed every obstacle in your path to shape you into what you have become. He KNOWS your weakness's. He placed them there. He knows your strengths, He gave them to you. He knows your failures, He was there. He has given each of us exactly what we need to live the life He desires us to have.  He has given us our weakness's because they are what draws us to Him the most. When we turn to Him with them. When I see Him take my weakness and turn them into an asset or a strength, I KNOW that's God moving and working and not me. Because I am all too familiar with the areas I tend to fail the most. When I see God take the things that once kept me in defeat and turn them into something He can use to bring glory to Himself. I know that's Him working.
Anyone of the miracles Christ performed in the bible, do you think the people would have met Christ without the weakness? Deafness, blindness, lameness, even demon possession.  The people lost in sin? Without the sin they wouldn't need a Savior...

We need to stop holding onto these weaknesses in our life that keep us from Pursuing God fully and instead pursue God and let Him transform our weaknesses!