Seeing through His eyes

I don't do it. But I try. Desperately. I want to do everything I can to see myself, my life, God, and you through the eyes of Christ. It is vital to see as He does if I am going to live the life that He created me for.

I have had some serious vision problems in my life. I don't mean physically, though I am pretty much blind with out my contacts or my glasses, which I only wear at night. Actually since we are going there, I also wear a retainer at night.. my nerdiness has gotten more discreet as I have gotten older. When I was younger it was no secret that I was on the nerdy end of things.. pretty sure the glasses, braces, and nightly head-gear left no room to wonder. My beauty was inside, deep, deep, deep inside, not even remotely close to the outside. Oh what a tangent I'm on..

Anyway, back to my vision problems, I mean I have had serious issues when it comes to the way I see myself and the world around me. Obviously, when I tell you that I often flirted with the idea of suicide and spent excessive amounts of time harming myself through both cutting and bulimia, it is evident I didn't see things clearly. My interactions with boys also confirmed my skewed vision, I devalued my body, and quietly looked to guys to show me if I was worthy, because inside I didn't feel it. Family issues added to it, and broken friendships confirmed the lies I believed all the more, until I was walking around with a perception of life that was so ridiculously far from the truth, it is a wonder I made it as long as I did.

So how did I go from being that girl to this one? (Though you must know, I am still trying to figure out who exactly 'this one' is. But I do know that I like 'this one' a lot more than I liked 'that one'.) It took death. I had to put that old Jessica to death and be raised again in Christ, because only in Him was I going to be able to see things His way. 

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

What I came to find out in my pursuit of God was that He actually really liked me. So much. He is kind of crazy about me actually. Think about it.. if I told you I was in love with someone who had just been given the death penalty, but I loved them so madly that I was going to take on the death penalty myself, so that they could be free. You would tell me I was out of my mind. I know! I totally agree with you! But that's what our God did for us. He thought we meant more than His life.

So if the Creator of the Universe fancies me. I must be something worth looking twice at. I must be worth more than I thought. Exactly. You are too. 

You are magnificent. A work of art. A masterpiece. You may doubt your worth, but He doesn't. You may doubt your abilities, but He doesn't. You may worry, and be afraid, and stress and be anxious. You may feel hopeless, confused, and broken. He knows. He is ready to heal you and give you new eyes. He wants to restore your perspective so that you are not shaken by the things of this world. In Christ alone you can have security and freedom.

If we don't see ourselves through the eyes of Truth, there is a good chance we will miss out on what we were created for. Doubt, fear, insecurity & unbelief will rob us of the dreams that Heaven has for us and this world will be left yearning for the Light within us that we never realized we had.

"In the same way, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16

Having Vision&& Making the Most of Where We Are

We all do it. The more I open up with people about it, the more I hear "That is so normal." What am I talking about? I am talking about the feeling that happens inside us when we wonder if we are where we are supposed to be. It's the painful questions that rise in our minds when we think of all of the things we have turned down in order to be where we are today... The guy or girl we didn't date. Or the one we didn't stay with. The career we didn't pursue. The passion we didn't follow. The school we didn't go to. The diet we didn't finish. The place we didn't move to. 


Life is full of choices, and when we say "yes" to one thing, we are essentially saying "no" to the other options. One of my biggest fears in my life is that one day when I am like 40 perhaps, then I  will look back at my life and see all of the things I should have done, but didn't. Sometimes I hear adults do it- you ask them what they wanted to do when they were young and they say something like, "Oh I so badly wanted to be an artist, or an athlete, but now I am just a teacher." Notice the emphasis is not on what they wanted, nor what they have become, it is on the "just a", I never want to be a "just a". No matter where I go in life I want to be excited about where I am at, and the decisions I have made. But that temptation to feel like I'm "just" something, is overwhelming. 


I've been praying about this the last few days, because my own questions are making my stomach sick and I'm desperate for answers. True answers. God's answers. My own answers are unreliable, and the world's answers are unimpressive. The world says if you are unhappy in your marriage then divorce; if you don't like life now then leave it and start new; if you don't like your job then step on people and do everything you can to move ahead. I'm not down with that. I have seen and been a part of too many broken situations to believe that those are the best pieces of advice I can find. So then what is God's design? What does He have to say when I am crying alone wondering if I have made the right choices, or if I somewhere in the last few years I went wrong and I am missing out on something? 


God's answer for me was Joseph. The Joseph of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Joseph is my favorite, I am constantly looking to him to show me how to live. This guy knows how to do things. He is young, good looking, and well-built. His dad favors him, his brothers hate him, and God speaks to him. Joe's brothers end up selling him to be a slave and then they deceive their father into thinking that Joe was killed by a wild animal. Joe is purchased by an Egyptian officer, and he serves the guy faithfully. In fact our man Joey does such an amazing job that he is put in charge of everything the officer owns. Then the officer's scandalous wife notices how much of a babe Joe is, so she tries to sleep with him. Honestly you would think JoeJoe would give in to the temptation, this woman is probably beautiful, and obviously Joe is not getting sex from anywhere else. But out of his love for God and his respect for the officer, he literally runs away from the woman. She is not thrilled about that,  and she is probably embarrassed, so she frames Joseph and claims that he tried to rape her... Joey is thrown into prison. But God was with Joe, and he was promoted to be in charge of all the other prisoners and everything that happens in the prison. Eventually Joe does something supernatural, he correctly interprets the dreams of some of the Pharaoh's main men- this appears to be his ticket out of prison. However he is forgotten about and so therefore, he spends two more years serving God in jail. Eventually though, the Pharaoh needs a dream interpreted and everyone looks to Joey to do the job. After he correctly interprets the dream he is favored so highly that Pharaoh makes him second in command over the entire land of Egypt, only the King has a rank higher than Joseph.


Amazing isn't it? Everything in Joe's life points toward devastation, and yet everything he does prospers. Why is that? My conclusion is that Joe's love for God overwhelms everything else in his life. His desire is to serve God faithfully, no matter where he is, or what the circumstances look like, or how long he will be there. He fully trusts God to take his life where he needs it to be. We see that in chapter 50 verse 20 when Joe is finally reunited with his brothers,


 ²⁰ As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result..."



Joe's eyes were set on heaven. He did everything he could to make the most of where he was, in order to bring glory to God. He had vision for his life and he followed it. 


There is my answer, and there is yours too. Vision. Our eyes need to be set on God, trusting in 2 things:


1) God is trustworthy.
2) He is with us.


It is important to know that we can trust Him. We can trust that He is big. He is good. He can speak to us. We will hear Him. His perspective is true. He knows more than we do. His plans are to give us a hope and a future. He loves us and He knows what is best for us. We can trust that He will take care of us and meet our needs. We can trust that His word is true and that life on this planet is not the end of the story. We can trust that if we set our eyes on Him then we will be taken places that we never dreamed possible. 


It is vital to know He is with us. He is here. Now. With me. With you. Protecting us. Leading us. Comforting us. Filling us. Strengthening us. Preparing us. Giving us access to supernatural power. Renewing our minds, transforming our hearts, and making us more like Him. We were created for His delight and in Him we find our identity. Everything else grows dim when we experience the fullness of His presence. 


So then what about my questions? Did I go wrong somewhere? Should I have picked college instead of YWAM? Or someone else instead of Shaun? Should I be dancing instead of writing? Or modeling instead of eating so much? 


²⁸ And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.


Joseph knows it. I know it. My sister Meredith knows it. Amy Plender & Beka Brigleb know it. Liz Wetherby knows it. Shaun knows it. About 30 skaters down the street know it now too. God is in control. Our lives are surrendered to Christ. We can be still now, serve faithfully, and believe for God's best, no matter what shape it takes on. We need to keep our focus on Him, right where we are, because if we remain distracted we will miss out on the blessing that is right in front of us. 




***********
Some practical application... for those like me who need help knowing how to live out the truth when our minds are racing with lies. 


Think of the people in your life and all of the roles you have to fulfill. 
(I will do myself as your example)


I am a:
-Friend
-Sister
-Wife
-Daughter
-YWAM Missionary
-Assistant to an elderly woman
-serve at Models For Christ
-Create leader
-dancer 


Okay so then you think about the end of your life. The real end. Like when you die, and your name is a memory. Now go through your list of roles and decide how you want these people to remember you. 


Example: -Friend- I want be remembered for being faithful, hopeful, not gossiping, encouraging, prayerful, fun, positive, open, listening well, being patient... etc. 


Now you have a template for how to act, no matter the circumstances. So say I have a friend that is making me crazy and frustrating the heck out of me- I know that no matter how I feel, my actions need to line up with the vision that I have set (the way I want to be remembered at the end of life). 


"Where there is no vision people perish" Proverbs 29:18 

Is My Question Answered?

Men. Thousands of them. From all of the world. Rich men. Attractive men. European men that could be on the covers of magazines, if their successful business careers ever left them lacking in finances. 

Then there was me, dressed in black slacks and a somewhat-frumpy-looking red dress shirt that the hiring agency required us to wear. My job was to stand alongside my fellow YWAM friends and greet these great looking gentlemen and point them towards their meal. I did this for hours, for two days, breakfast and lunch, interacting with around 5,000 people.. mostly men. It got quite entertaining for my friends and I to greet the people according to their native language, switching things up from Germany's "Guten Morgen" and France's "Bonjour", to Japan's "Konichiwa"and India's "Namasday".  I also prided myself in the fake British accent I used, feeling extra confident when U.K. natives expected me to treat them as special because "we were both from the same country". 


Aside from all of the fun I was having practicing the different languages, I also experienced a deep battle within me that was undeniable. I felt myself wondering what these men thought of me. Do they think I'm beautiful? Would men of this status find me interesting and desirable? When a few of them acted flirtatious or looked at me with that look I wrestled with feeling bad for enjoying it, and yet also hoping that they would continue to recognize that even though I was hidden in my unflattering outfit, I was still an attractive young woman. All the while I was missing Shaun, because he had been in Asia for just over 20 days at this point, and I think loneliness was helping to fuel my issues with lust and insecurity. 


As I sought God for help, longing for Him to free me from myself, longing to be a faithful wife to Shaun and a faithful daughter of Christ, longing for purity... I felt Him teach me a lesson that I am still seeking to understand. The process went something like this, I will type "the voice of God" but know that it is what I felt Him showing me in my mind and at the time it did not happen as concisely as I will type it:


"Jessica, I can answer your questions. If you do not come to me for the answers you are looking for, you will always be more focused on finding the answers yourself and never move ahead into the purposes I have for your life."


"God, what answers are you talking about?"


"Well Jess, when you go about your day, and are looking to these men, and are focused on your appearance, what is it that you are wondering?"


"I wonder if I am beautiful. I wonder if I am desirable. I wonder if I am smart enough, if I dress well enough, if I am funny enough, if my personality is good enough, or if it is too much. I wonder if one day I will look back and find out that I wasted my life, or that I made too many mistakes, and if only I had just done something differently back when I was in my twenties, then everything would be different. I wonder if I am successful or if I am doing a good job at my life... 
I have lots of questions."


"Yes you do, I know them all very well. I have the answers for you, and I will be faithful to continue showing you the truth about yourself. But if you do not trust in My answers you will continue to allow men to have the power over you that only I am designed to have. If you do not allow Me to answer your questions then every man and every mirror and every situation becomes too powerful. You surrender your life to them and you believe the opinion you perceive them to have over you. Each man that you greet becomes the one who gives you your answer. If they flirt with you then temporarily you have an answer. But if they look past you, then it leaves you wondering again. I am your Creator, your Lover, your Friend, your Husband, your Father, your Lord, your Counselor, and the One that will lead you through life. Trust me to show you the truth about yourself and allow me to fill you. If you can rest in what I have to say about you then you will have the strength to move forward and share my love and life with others. You were made to shine, but when you spend your time lusting for the world, you are hiding your light. Trust in my answers and experience the freedom to be who you were made to be. "


I hope this conversation makes sense. Basically what I am learning is that we have so many questions about ourselves and our lives, and it is tempting to look to the world to get our answers. But only God has the Answer that will truly set us free. We need Jesus and He will give us the grace to trust what He has to say about us. It is not simply a fluffy way for insecure people to feel strong, it is the truth from the Creator of the Universe and no person will truly live free apart from the power of Christ. 

Do Not Love This World- 1 John 2:

 ¹⁵ Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. ¹⁶ For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. ¹⁷ And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.