“We don’t have to stress and strain to be restored; our work is to believe and surrender to God’s guidance and life-giving love. We don’t have to ‘dig up stuff’; God will show us where and what needs healing. We don’t have to fear God’s restoration project; God is not out to get us, but to reclaim our original design.”- Marilyn Vancil
“The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by the same Spirit living within you.”- Romans 8:11 (NLT)
Summer Joy Gross concludes Chapter 13 of The Emmanuel Promise as she underscores our need to treat ourselves with compassion. As well as the places where we find ourselves still bound. Because Jesus’ compassion stays through our shame — and He showed us the way.
Above all, Summer states, only God transforms and delivers. Yet, she exhorts, we must kneel in prayer to hollow ourselves of ego. And to make room for a rush of the wind of the Spirit.
Most significantly, when Summer places herself in God’s hands she thinks about Michelangelo’s prisoners in Accademia. It’s a museum in Florence, Italy. Four half-finished figures capture the viewer’s attention. Summer sees a startling beauty in the half done. A startling beauty in the becoming. Hence, the author explains:
“They’re in various stages of completion, and every time I see them, I have a feeling of kinship. I get discouraged with my own becoming, the half-finished and pockmarked heart, the crusty and the caustic, the half-healed wounds that, when touched, still jump up and surprise me with their ferocious yelp. . . .
Repentance is submitting to the kind chisel of God. We believe we need to take a chisel and hammer to ourselves, but it is God who has the final glorious art in mind.”
Finally, we need God to walk beside us, His wisdom at the place of our deepest wounding.
Today’s question: How do you see God working to reclaim your original design? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Lectio Divina – prayerful reading”
