My Shack of A Life

For the last four weeks we have been talking about the power of determination.  The power of determination gives us the drive to get back up and helps drive us to hold on to God until he blesses us.  Determination keeps us committed to those who try to get rid of us, and it helps us remove excuses for giving up on the race of life.  So, the question is, who could ever be more determined than us?

Have you ever hit rock bottom?  I know that when I did it was because I realized I tried to live life without God and it wasn’t possible.  We surrender what we thought we knew about running out life and ask for him to fix what we ultimately broke and miss used.  When we finally get to this place we are, in a sense, giving God a life that was built on a foundation of hurt, self-sufficiency, ego, pride, rejection and more.  We built a world without Him, and we admit that there is no “us” without Him.

It is like trying to build our house and then finding out that all the wood we used for the structure was rotten.  We attempt to repair the parts that are breaking apart, but the more we try to fix it the more issues present themselves.  When we finally exhaust ourselves and realized there is no saving it, we present it to God.

In Luke 14 Jesus talked about the cost of following him as a disciple.  He wanted them to understand what he demanded from them so he compared this decision to a man who was going to build a tower.

²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

Luke 14:28

We are going to look at this a little differently and see the man building the tower as Jesus and the tower represents our lives.  When we come to God with our shack of a life with rotted wood he looks, counts the cost, and evaluates the time needed to repair and complete us.  What is the cost God is willing to pay?

I Corinthians 6:20   ¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Determined to Pay The Price

He knew very well that the cost to restore all of us was not going to be cheap.  Jesus purchased us with His own life when He died on the cross for those who would believe.  So after purchasing us, He sees that there is going to be time needed to invest in restoring us.  God is a determined builder, and once we place our lives into his hands we can be reassured that he is going to make us brand new (2 Timothy 2:19).

However, our years of struggling with our past may convince us that there is nothing He can do with the life we give him.  We question His ability. Nonetheless, there is no one more determined to change our lives than He.

What are some of the challenges you face in putting your life in God’s hands for repairs?  Well I know that for a while I blamed God for where I was.  I blamed him for putting me in this family and watching me get molested, beaten, battered and bruised.  I was in a spiritual, emotional and mental shack because that’s where He put me (so I thought).  When God was pulling at my heart, I was accusing God.  I wanted nothing to do with a God who place me here.

When I hit rock bottom I realized that it wasn’t God that put me there but the choices my parents and grandparents made.  He didn’t want me there—he wanted me out.

How do you resolve your blame to God?  How can you trust someone who places you in a horrible situation just so you would need Him?  My friend, I learned something very difficult and painful. It was never God’s intention for any of us to live the wretched lives we experienced.  It was never God’s intention to allow loss, grief, pain, abuse, abandonment and anxiety to rule us.  Some of these afflictions are a direct result of choices made-maybe not by you but ultimately a decision made by someone.  Those people who came before us made choices that caused us to be in the cross fire of their consequences.

Imagine this. I want to build a bridge, but don’t have any idea how to do so.  The man who created the foundation for the first bridge comes by and tries to help, but I silence him and tell him to mind his business.  I continue to keep building it.  It is unstable, broken in some spots and wobbly . However, I make it to the other side.  I walk across it a few times and then invite others to cross over it.  Eventually, the bridge collapses; some are injured and lives are lost.  How foolish is it for me (and those who got hurt) to turn to the man who could have built the bridge and say, “This is your fault because you should have stopped us.  You knew it was built wrong, but just watched.”  We (parents and grandparents included) create a world completely void of God and we wonder why He doesn’t intervene in the crumbling foundation of our lives and our children’s lives.

Determined to Finish

There is another reason we struggle with giving God our lives to fix. We think it’s too messed up to be fixed.  When God gets into the root of our dysfunction we are ashamed of the cracks and the holes.  Look at Philippians 1:6

⁶ I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].

I came to God a: foul-mouthed, nasty, insecure, depressed, suicidal, violent, lustful, mean-spirited, self-destructive, abusive girl. God transformed me little by little.  Over time He dealt with my hang-ups, habits and hurts.  I needed to just trust that when He started working on me, He would not forget me or leave me when it got really ugly.  I needed to know that He was going to be determined to transform me to the woman He originally planned for me to be.

I have the privilege of mentoring different people and there are a few things that discourage them while God is rebuilding them.  Changing takes time.  Just when they thought they overcame certain things they see that they have a long way to go.  It can sometimes feel like renovations on our attitude and thoughts will never end as one issue after issue seems to come up.  There may be a temptation to believe that we can’t change, or that this is just who we are and even that God made us this way so we better just give up.

What gives me comfort is that my transformation was not dependent on my determination, but God’s.  He never left me in the state I was in and He won’t leave you there either because, not only is he passionate for us to have an intimate relationship with him, but God is not a God that will be mocked.  In Luke 14:29 it says that those that viewed the structure that was started but was not finished, mocked the builder because he began something he could not complete.  You can be reassured that if God has started a good work in you He is determined to finish it.

Weekly Challenge:

As we allow God to reconstruct us we have to do our part.  Read Psalms 51 and admit the things that have to be removed for you to have a clean heart.  Also if you would like to hear more about my testimony read my book, “The Threshing: A Weapon Forged by Fire.” Sign up here to read the first three chapters for free!
You can also buy the full book on Amazon!  For help in pursuing the life that God has for you try reading “In the Pit With A Lion on a Snowy Day”  by Mark Batterson.

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