Becoming... Refined

Burn me beatiful.

Burn me lovely.

Burn me righteous.

Burn me holy.

In 2020, I went through a low time and found myself struggling in several areas of my life. As pressures mounted, I did what I am prone to do. I began to focus on how to change my circumstances. My brain began to be filled with ideas, plans and schemes designed to get me to a more comfortable place. And, as usually happens when I try to manipulate my circumstances, I just got more frustrated and less content.

1st Peter 1:7 says, “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It being tested as fire tests and purifies gold. Though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Christ Jesus is revealed to the whole world.”

Sometimes we expect God to simply zap the junk out of our lives when we enter into relationship with Him. But that is not the refining process -- not for gold, and not for us. God loves us too much to leave us as we are because our impure selves cannot reflect clearly all of who he is, and our fullest joy is realized in the growing brilliance of our reflection of him in our lives. The refining process is hot. To refine gold, heat must be applied to force the impurities to the surface. As the impurities rise, they are removed and more heat is applied. This process continues and continues, heat is applied and re-applied, until the gold is pure. The refiner knows the gold is pure when he looks into the gold and sees his clear reflection.

God works a similar process in us. Our lives are a process of God applying heat and exposing our weaknesses, our faults, our struggles, and our impurities. Heat is hot and uncomfortable, but if we submit to the heat, we are day by day transformed into His likeness. The process ends when we meet Jesus face to face, and he looks into our faces and sees his clear reflection.

So often we seek to place blame on someone or something for the difficult issues in our lives. But things we attribute to evil may well be heat applied by the refiner of our souls -- heat full of purpose and heat that ultimately will result in purity and joy. Illness may be designed to bring fear to the surface so God can build trust. Financial difficulty may raise materialism to the surface. Loneliness may raise idolatry to the surface. Relational struggles may raise bitterness or unforgiveness to the surface. Disappointment at work may raise pride to the surface. The heat and trials of our lives are not evidence God is cruel or has left you, but ultimately are evidence of how much God values you and his desire for you to be all he designed you to be. He values us as he finds us but he loves us too much to leave us as he finds us.

When life gets hot and difficult, human tendency is to run from the heat. When a molten substance is removed from the heat, it hardens. When we run from the heat, our lives and hearts harden, our impurities set and we simply stagnate. God tells us in Hebrews 12 it will seem difficult for the moment, but it always yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. If most of us were honest, we would trade much in our life for a sense of true peace. Peace does not primarily mean we have peaceful circumstances. Peace is realizing God is in control of all of the pieces of our lives, and even the difficult pieces have an important place in the bigger picture of God's plan for us. It is in peace we find rest. There is joy -- and peace -- and rest -- in the refining process.

As God changes your perspective, you will begin to see less of what is wrong and more of what evidences God's refining work in your life -- God bringing weaknesses to the surface so you ultimately will be stronger, more like him and more reflective of him. God's plan is not to make you more independent or more self-sufficient. His plan is to make you holy and dependent servants of the refiner who desires to give us lives far beyond what we ever could imagine. In the heat, we see his power displayed and we become vessels for his glory and reflectors of his image to the world -- and that is a life worth living, no matter your circumstances!

So what are you trusting God to refine you through in 2021? Whatever it is I pray that you would remember that it takes time and that you lean and trust Him along the way. He is for you, full and always. He has not forgotten about what you long for, he is simply burning away everything that is not like him.

God,

Thank you for every trial and test that 2020 brought. Thank you for making it hard. Thank you for taking away the things that you took way and exchanging them for a life and identity that is fully connected to you. I know that we absolutely hate the unknown, we want to be in control of our lives, and we want to be certain of what you are doing. God help us to head into 2021 with a heart that is longing to be aligned with yours. That we would remember that even in the refinement that your end product is better than ours. Thank you for burning the beautiful things into us.

Signed,

Becoming Refined

Becoming... Known

Becoming… Known

I have been longing for something, fighting for it in fact. This year it started to show up and manifest in ways that my heart truly was not ready for, so it led to this resistance. In the midst of the resistance and lack of me wanting to receive love fully, God came looking for me. I spent 24 days in Psalm 139 and allowed God to show me the intimacy of what it looks like to be known by Him and his people.

"Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me " Psalm 139:1

Searched and known. Search literally means to try and find something by looking, and known means to have a personal experience with a person. The opening verses reveal how thorough God’s watch-care is over your life (v.1). I say “watch-care” because he is watching, but it’s not a disinterested observation. It’s careful attention. It is valuable, it’s vulnerable, and it makes you feel like you matter deeply (because you do).

I believe God does know everything about us and cares about us greatly and Psalm 139 is a declaration of this truth. God made us, knows us, and loves us — not because we are perfect but because we are His. This is wonderful and life-changing news, but this Psalm is also much more. David (the writer) awakens us to our longing for intimacy with God and shows us how to respond to His love. The final words of this Psalm are a prayer of surrender. We surrender to God when we see how precious we are in His eyes. Anything we could imagine for our lives is but a drop compared to the abundance He desires for us.

It can be so easy to forget how much we matter in a world that is not always good at displaying love rightly. Things go wrong at work, you feel misunderstood by loved ones, or sometimes life just feels heavy. Over the last few months, I have had to trust and lean on God for hard things and even trust the people that are around me for help too. I felt like I did not matter, that I was too much and every time God reminded me that I was enough and beyond valuable in his eyes.

You see, here is the ugly truth, we would much rather go it alone and be reckless in the process than trust what it takes in being known. We do not want people tapping in and stepping on our toes because they love us. We don’t want them looking us in the eyes and knowing that stuff is really out here falling apart. It exposes the sad reality that we would rather choose our own independence over God hopping into our situation or Him using his people to love us out of (or despite) our circumstances.

Inviting God to search me and know me is inviting Him to show me myself — my beauty and my darkness. Practically, it was me opening my mouth and telling a friend I was scared. It looked like me ignoring fewer calls from my family and trusting that they wanted to help. It looked like me trusting Him with a hard season and Him truly creating beauty from ashes. He is the only one who knows the depths of both. And He is the only one who can restore me to the perfection He planned for me from the beginning.

God,

What a joy it is that you know everything about me and even when I do wrong it never separates me from your unfailing love. You give it in abundance and it never runs out for me. I trust that as I lean into you that I will get to experience more of your grace and your presence. Thank you for always choosing me in the deepest of ways.

Signed,

Becoming...Known

Becoming... 30

This is blog is dedicated to my people. You know who you are, I call you my village. Full of family and friends that showed up for your girl. You believed in what God could do for me before I did and loved me fully while he did his thing. Your love for me has never gone unnoticed and is beyond appreciated. Stay tuned because 30 is for you!

I never use to have this fear about what was next for me until about a year ago when I realized I was turning 30 this year. All of a sudden I started to feel the weight of everything I felt like I should have accomplished based on the world’s standard. I started to feel the heaviness around being single, my career not being where I wanted it to be and feeling like I had not done a host of other things. Earlier this year a friend of mine was praying over me and the Lord led her to tell me to “drop my plans and embrace the now”. I wept and did not fully understand what God was really asking of me. Drop what??? Excuse me Lord but I don’t know about all of that.

In the midst of my pride and arrogance, God still got at my plans. Y’all he started shaking the tables of my life and turning stuff over and upside down. He started asking for more of me, he started challenging me to trust him, and he asked me to open doors so that I could fully heal the way he needed me to be healed in this new season. Eventually, I could not resist anymore, and do you know what happened? God had the nerve to bless little old me, and I am not talking about small blessings either.

I started to see him transform friendships and relationships with people. He had a strong desire for me to experience love and trust in a new way. Things that I never thought I was deserving of he started showing me that I was and he would drop another blessing on me. I started to feel the plans that I thought I needed to have for my life chip away and I was shifting my perspective. I became full of more joy, I had this desire to be with him more than I ever had before. I wanted less of me and more of him.

Here’s the thing, God has never had me out here looking crazy, but I thought he did because I wanted to do his job for him. You see God has shown me that flaws are okay, and that true healing will take place in owning my identity in Jesus. That I do not have to chase what’s next but merely stay in the present and bloom while God handled the anxiety I held. I did not have to search in people to be enough because God sent your girl some people that invited her to the party, and with that invitation, there will be a truth that is constantly spoken over her,

"Cre you belong here and are wanted here."

I began to understand that the no’s of yesterday will foster the one yes that will matter. I learned to remain passionate and patient in the waiting because what God reveals there will humble me in the purest of ways. My heart was always joyful even in sorrow because I had met God and he has shown me the beauty in just being myself (and I am dope).

You see God has molded made me into who I am. He showed me the beauty of who I am in unimaginable ways. I had to stop comparing my journey to everyone else. I had to evaluate the journey that I am on and see the misguided beauty in it. There is no train that is going to get me to the destination that I feel like I am supposed to be faster.

It is what has me excited about turning 30. God gets do far more in my life, and I get to buckle up and enjoy the ride. So while I’m unsure of what goes before me, I can be sure of one thing and that is that God is the God that will always go before me and that he loves me so much.

God,

Thank you for another year to honor you with my life. Thank you for my 20's which molded me and transitioned me into walking in the fullness of who you created me to be. I didn’t understand your plans and promises for my journey, but I do now and I’m forever grateful. May the next 365 days be full of honoring my life the way that you created it in every form. May my beauty be a direct reflection of what you are always doing in me. I’m so excited to trust you with more of my life.

Sincerely,

Becoming... 30