The Winter That Brings Clarity

If you didn’t know, winter is my least favorite season. Being cold makes me sad and sometimes bitter, I don’t like snow, most of the clothes I own is for the hot seasons so I don’t ever know what to wear, and everything is dead, depressing, and gloomy. Sorry for those who already hate the winter, I probably just made your thoughts about winter a little more dreary. Like, where is the color? Where is the sun? Where is the laughter that gets carried by the wind? It’s all gone, because everyone is always stuck inside. The motivation to get up out of bed disappears into the shivering cold air that screams to stay in bed. Yet here I am, in Kyrgyzstan, where it’s snowy and frigid. Last year I got to skip winter which I was too happy about. But in midst of the gloomy emotions about the winter season, the Lord is actually bringing clarity and growth, cutting away all that is dead.

One of those things he revealed was the gnat that flies around my head saying “you haven’t done enough.” This feeling was guilt. This is what drove me to ministry. If I felt like I did enough/ did well enough then I was justified, I was safe, and the Lord was pleased. If you haven’t guessed it already, the name of this gnat is “Works.”

Why works? What was the heart motive behind having to perform? A perfect God deserves perfect sacrifices. I’m obviously not perfect therefore I’m clearly not enough so I will do everything He has commanded in the New Testament perfectly since He has given me the Holy Spirit.

As I’m journaling and processing what the Lord has shown me, I had this analogy of a Chef and his crew member, me. He tells me to cut the onions while He cooks the noodles. Once the Chef has completed the noddles, He comes over to me and sees that I don’t know how to cut the onions or that I’m struggling to cut them. In my head, He gets frustrated because now He has to take the knife from me and do what He has commanded ME to do. If I can’t do what the Chef had commanded me to do, I always thought then “why am I here?” Why did He put me in the kitchen in the first place if He was still going to do my part? There is no point!

But what if both parts are His?

If you haven’t gotten it by now, this analogy represents Jesus on the cross. Jesus did this WHOLE thing; getting whipped and tortured, rejected, spit on, made fun of, humiliated, and died a sinners death. Completing the work in which He was sent to do. He then gives me the Holy Spirit (the knife), and commands me to fulfill the Great Commission, love each other as He has loved us, pray without ceasing, heal the sick and raise the dead, etc. Because He has done all of this, I have to do my part perfectly…I have to bring Him something.

Thinking my way through this and well as verbally processing all of this with some of my teammates, coming to the realization that I can’t offer Him anything that will ever be perfect enough was crushing. If I can’t muster up anything by works that will be good enough, why do I exist? If I can’t offer Him anything good, then what good am I? If I don’t have works to offer, then all I have left to offer is… myself.

That’s the answer. All He wants is me. The problem is I look at myself and see all the things that are wrong in my heart. I know that I am perfectly positioned in the throne room, holy, blameless, and pure. That is my identity. He has covered me in His righteousness yet somehow all I can see are the nasty things in my heart. So how is offering myself any better than my works? I was still not satisfied. I had thrown human characteristics onto the Lord: There has to be another motive behind dying on the cross. There’s no way that it can just be because He loves. How can the bottom line of the Gospel be love?

All the head knowledge is starting to become heart knowledge. I know that Jesus died on the cross because He loves me, but did I actually know it was because He wants relationship with me or did I believe that He just wanted me to be able to have His Holy Spirit just to do His work? This was eating at me. Was I just shown the perfect love of the Father?

How can He unconditionally desire and love something so needy that will never reach His deserved-to-be-reached standards? How can He love something that’s not perfect?

The questions are all just questions. My heart searches for the deepest possible answer but I really do believe there isn’t one. It’s actually just a simple answer: because He is love. How does that make sense? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s supposed to. It’s too pure of a Love that will ever make sense.

Conclusion

I feel so inadequate to even begin telling you this whole thing. I don’t have it all “figured out yet”. I’m still asking questions, still uprooting lies and misconceptions; what I believe to be ministry vs what God says it is. It’s all still unfolding bit by bit. But I do know exactly what the Lord wants me to know; being His daughter is enough. It all starts with the identity.

A father’s DNA is intertwined with the mother’s to create their daughter, there is no separating the DNA. Nothing in Heaven above and on the earth below can ever remove the father’s DNA from her. That is the daughter’s makeup. So whether she sins every single day for the rest of her life or has the best days ever,  that child will always be the Father’s. In the same way, the Holy Spirit is like the DNA that becomes one with mine, and nothing can ever not make me His daughter. It’s an eternal seal!!

A reflection question for you:

What religious activities are you tempted to rely on as the source of YOUR justification?

To the winter that brings clarity,

Until next blog,

Lexi B