(En español mañana... porque se me borró todo...)
So I find this tag attached to a shirt I bought recently and I thought "mmmmh, has a message", so why not share it. Here it goes.
Right? Isn't it peculiar? Like it should have had a Bible verse reference at the end of it. So this is how my little study goes:
"finished by hand"
"You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me...For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." Ps 139:5, 13God is up to something beautiful in our lives and He takes it upon Himself to complete it.
"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil. 1:6"No two are alike"
Can you believe that's on there? There's no comparison, there's no imitation that needs to take place as we are all different on purpose! I love that! If God personalizes snowflakes which melt away in a day, how much more a being made in His image and likeness? Look at your fingerprints, for goodness sake! There is a unique expression of the heart and mind of God that is being manifested through you and I! No one else on the face of the planet will say even the same words the same way...ever!. And this is why we have soooo many races, colors, even fragrances - all different and wonderful! We even have a thousand different species for dogs, cats, birds, to go along with all the different tastes for pets. I like it. Makes me happy, especially when I think of a thousand different ice-cream flavors. I like cotton-candy flavor ice-cream, which goes great with gummy bears. I hardly ever find it but it's ok. I don't really like ice-cream that much anyway.... yeah it's getting late, side tracked...
"Some loss of sequins or glitter is to be expected"
Here it starts getting good. I think I almost cried at this point, "like, really? On my clothes too?" "Loss" shouldn't be in the same sentence with "glitter", definitely not "sequins"?! Such happy words! Yet, "Loss"... There's this one story of a potter and his clay:
"So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him." Jeremiah 18:3-4See, it was in His hand! Didn't He watch what He was doing? While He was making it it broke. It broke but it was in His hand. And He reshaped it as it best seemed to Him. Lets face it, God has good taste, e.j. nature, waterfalls, birds.. strange taste too but that's ok. He's the ultimate Creative guy, has every right to be weird... side tracked agian, sorry. Anyway, He knows what He's doing. It'll work out at the end. More verses on loss, aka trials, aka pain, aka fire...
"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." 1Pt 1:6-7And the ever resented...
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4Notice the trend? You know what goes great with trials? Joy! Yeah, I don't get it either but it makes sense in the Spirit realm I suppose, since everything's pretty much backwards over there compared to how we do things here on earth. I like imageries, if you haven't noticed. Helps when you see a picture, clears it up a bit...the very infamous "a picture says a thousand words!" So my imagery for Joy in the midst of trials is, picture this: Michelangelo chiseling away a piece of rock. He's seeing something that's not there yet... but he can see it inside himself. He knows exactly what He's aiming for, what He wants to see, so He chisels and chisels and hammers away. He keeps at it and it brings Him great Joy as He works because He knows what the end result will be, pleasing to the Eye and to the hearts of many. So that kind of Joy is really us tapping into His joy in the midst of loss/trial/pain... Oooh! Oooh! Jesus did it! See here,
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:2You know... we were that joy set before Him. Sweet.
Michelangelo's "Pieta"
(It's made out of marble. It took him less than two years to make. It's dimensions
are 68.5 in × 76.8 in. It resides in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy).
God's got this plan of remaking us and reshaping us into the image and likeness of the only perfect one, the only one that pleases Him - Jesus. As it says,
"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." 2 Cor.3:18.
"For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!" 2 Cor. 3:10-11
And the "how", my friends, is interesting. The goal is not to aim higher but lower, by humility and surrender.
I like the "wash process". It sounds so soothing and almost enjoyable.
"He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit," Titus 3:5
"... you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." 1 Cor. 6:11
"they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb...Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city." Rev.7:15, 22:14.
A lot of washing going on, so brace yourself and enjoy, en-joy, in Joy the process!
So I propose we make a bunch of these tags for ourselves and give them out to other people to wear around their necks too to be reminded of the "process" and thus provide an explanation of why there's sequins all over the place from time to time. .........must resist smileys................awhh...............can't ; )
So I propose we make a bunch of these tags for ourselves and give them out to other people to wear around their necks too to be reminded of the "process" and thus provide an explanation of why there's sequins all over the place from time to time. .........must resist smileys................awhh...............can't ; )
