Reset

I've found that God likes to start over. And I'm not just talking about the flood here. My understanding about how He effects our life goes like this... He rips out our heart, then He replaces it with a new one. This is in stark contrast to the idea that He somehow "adjusts" our heart or "tweaks" it. Takes out the bad and puts in some good. No. It's like you have a broken heart and He can't even work with it, so He gives you a brand new one.

Of course, I'm referring to the point where someone accepts Christ as his/her Lord and Savior. However, I've found that this concept is true in a lot of areas of my life. The hard part is this: He's gotta destroy things completely before He can replace them with something new. Much like in the intense scene of "The Passion of the Christ" that Jesus drags the huge cross on his back in the blistering sun. He's barely making any progress down the road. Lash wounds, dirt, and blood were literally covering his entire body. One of the times he trips and falls under the weight of the cross, He looks to his mother through his blood-filled eye sockets and says, "Look mom, I make all things new."

That lands on me like nothing else that you see in that film. Yes, He's beaten, bruised, ripped, crushed, spit on, etc... But the moment you realize that it's necessary is when it all comes together. It wasn't in vain. When I realize that something that may be tough in my life is necessary I'm renewed in my strength.

One more analogy and I'll leave you alone. Kevin Beasley(Leader of Converge Auburn) told me in reference to some struggles I've gone through in the past year this: You can look over the edge of a cliff and see somewhere down there that you know you need to be and you could be right, but you can't go straight there. You'd break every bone in your body and die. God knows the path around the mountain and down the hill. Often we look at it as the long way around, but God happens to know that it's the only way. I see a ton of things in my life more clearly through this revelation.
Romans 8:28