Perfect or not so perfect.

 Have you ever been grocery shopping when people are buying eggs? One carton at a time they pick them up, opening the lid to see if any of the eggs are cracked. All it takes is one little crack in one of the eggs and the whole carton gets rejected and set aside for the next person to check to see what is inside.

 

It reminds me of a recent quote and conversation I was having on Facebook with our youth minister Darin Hollingsworth. He had posted on Facebook this following quote, "...we have done our best to remind ourselves and our kids that each of them is a profound gift from God, and we are his somewhat flawed dispensers of grace to them." Sticky Faith quoting Nouwen's writing.

 

Since quotes are my specialty that I love to write on I had to do more than simply push "like." My comment back to him was, "I like the phrase about "we are his somewhat flawed dispensers of grace to them." As adults we aren't perfect but God can use us just the same flawed or not. May we get the message out to our youth. The part about them being a gift from God not about the part that we are flawed dispensers. That's our secret with God. I love Jesus!"

 

Darin graciously asked if he could push back a little and here is what he said, "I think it's only through allowing youth to see our flaws that we will be able to convince them that God is ridiculously and radically crazy about them...even in the midst of their sin and brokenness. It is only then will they dare to hope that they are loved and as a result they begin to believe beyond doubt that they are unconditionally loved.

 

Excellent point Darin and the more I think about this whole subject, the more I think about it.

We are out of balance in this area of flukes and flaws, perfect or imperfect. Our short-comings or failures whatever you want to call them. We go to one extreme to hide our flaws in fear of what “others might” think of us or we go the other direction. The direction of not caring what people sees or thinks of us and we wind up proud of our shortcomings. We get to the point we don’t care what people think or see or if we use our flukes or flaws to better us instead of bringing us further down.

 While we don’t need to hide from our flukes and flaws because God certainly can use them to further his kingdom we don’t need to flaunt them as a trophy on a bookshelf we are proud of.

Look around and see what God can do for you in spite of your flaws. He doesn’t need a perfect dozen to make things happen. He isn’t going to look into the carton of your heart and see a few cracks and reject the whole package of you because of it. He’s bigger and wiser than that. He’s creative and knows how to use our flaws to His benefit in the Kingdom of God. The biggest benefit being the ability to show others that God does love us in spite of our shortcomings.

 

 

Where is my worth?

Too often we make the mistake of looking at ourselves and wondering, “Where is my worth? I haven’t done anything special. I am not as good as those people over there. I’ll never amount to anything.” STOP! STOP! STOP! Did I mention…..STOP!!!!!

Like these bucket of flowers in the picture we have our worth. The buckets the flowers are planted in are ones that my grandkids and I picked out of the dump sites on the desert near our home. Fifty to 100 years ago people used that desert to dump their garbage. At the time they went out there and discarded their “junk” they never thought someone would one day make a flower bucket out of it that looked so pretty.

The point is we all have our valve, our worth and its more than what we give ourselves credit for. All we have to do is add little colorful flowers to add brightness to what appears to be a dull, rusty, and worn out surface.

The colorful flowers come from Jesus knowing first hand that we are loved by Him. He doesn’t have a price tag on each of us as He lines us up to sell us to the world at the next neighborhood yard sale that comes up. We are the items in the antique shop that keep going up and up in value. You don’t have to be a child of a missionary or preacher to have that value all you need to do is accept the invitation to be the child of God.

God is willing to adopt each and every one of us if we would only accept the invitation, accept the flowers He is handing to us. No one in their right mind would shut the door in the face of the florist who just delivered a bouquet of red roses and we shouldn’t shut the door in the face of God either.

Get into God’s word, claim his promises, and discover your worth in God. It’s valuable. It’s a treasure worth claiming. That treasure is YOU. Where's my worth? IN God not outside of God.

They Call me, Grandma



© 2012 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing