Being His

In this time of being prepared for my future husband, God is showing me what true love really looks like.

God has shown me that when He sees us at our absolute worst, He also sees potential. He starts to reshape and purify our hearts and lives.

He desires to know us intimately which means we have to be real, honest, pure, and open. We have to cherish Him and invest into our relationships with Him above all other things. We also have to invest into others and devote ourselves to service, while not forgetting to sit quietly in the presence of God while He pours into us.

Jesus has shown me where my true joy comes from. I can’t seek fulfillment and satisfaction in the world. Seeking the world leads to insecurity, envy, and forgetting how blessed we already are.

He has given me a distinct sense of purpose in this life, and is continually showing me that our purpose is to stand out and to be different.

Jesus is also teaching me to be His and how to display His love in such a real and authentic type of way. I’m called to obey without knowing all of the details, simplify life, and seek my Father first. I must also show others that they don’t have to continue to live in sin while I help them find new life in Christ. I’ve been burdened to disciple new believers as they grow in His grace.

Jesus already knows the next thing I will struggle with or when I will spend more time doing something I desire than in quiet time with Him. In spite of this, He doesn’t stop wanting, seeking, loving, or forgiving me.

God goes before us, preparing the way to make us brave when we’re called to step out in faith. Every day of quiet time, prayer or church service is preparing us for the things He has in store for our lives.

Jesus is our Redeemer. He breaks our chains. He takes our spirits of fear, worry, and anxiety to the cross where He died so that we wouldn’t have to bear them.

He helps us overcome the things that are holding us back from walking in the life of service God is calling us into.

He pierces our hearts when He knows we’re struggling or when He sees someone else struggling that we need to help.

Abba opens our eyes to our spiritual gifts and starts developing them in us. He desires us to use them for His glory. He takes what we have to offer and multiplies the ways He’ll be able to use them to reach His people.

Jesus teaches us patience when we are thirsty for His presence and long for special moments with Him. He shows us that when we wait, He gives us His very best.

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These are just the highlights of what God has shown me. Each group of words written above is related to a season in my life.

In seventh grade, I struggled with perfection, comparison, insecurities, and my relationship with God. I was trying to live out the “perfect image” that our world promotes.

Jesus personally became my Redeemer that summer as He freed me from a relationship that was unhealthy. I thought that some things in my life were falling apart. I now realize that we sometimes have to go to a “broken” state before we realize Who makes us whole. I have experienced the process of being made whole.

Last year, I grew so much in my personal relationship with Jesus. I watched Him reveal and develop my spiritual gifts. I longed for His presence in my daily life and clung to Him through late and stressful nights of homework. School was hard and the devil was using spirits of fear, anxiety, and worry to torment me. 

I was so scared of public speaking. My middle school pastor asked me to speak for our youth take over service the Sunday after the United Conference this summer. I was wanting to say no. Let me remind you, I was thinking that it was just going to be Sunday school. The fact that it was “big church” was another level in my mind. God wouldn’t let me not do it though. I knew that He was opening the door of opportunity for me so I couldn’t just close it. It was a leap of faith and I knew I would have to rely on Jesus’ strength and power to do it.

While at the United Conference on that Friday night, the pastor was talking about God breaking the chains of the things holding us back from living out our purpose. My struggle was with fear. I was freed from that burden. Jesus made me brave that Sunday morning and has given me another opportunity to speak since then.

I know where my identity and my joy comes from. It comes from being His.

What are you holding onto tonight that’s quenching your thirst for God? Whatever it is, He already knows. Jesus wants to help you. He sees potential in you. You are God’s child, and He hurts to see you hurting. Cling to Him tonight. Receive joy and freedom.