Barely an Exchange
“Every season is preparatory for the season ahead. It's all gorgeous actually. The very way God orchestrates our life piece by piece, year by year, season by season. The moment you get to find yourself planted in the midst of a season God promised you in the days before, is the moment you wholeheartedly get to declare to yourself, ’I was made for this’.”
When I chose the title for this piece I struggled so much. I struggled because all I could think about is people misinterpreting the meaning I am trying to get across. The idea is not that the price Jesus paid on the cross is not extraordinary. The exchange I am referring to in this piece is the one we make with God every single day. I will go more in depth with this thought soon, bare with me friend.
One thing God has highlighted to me in this new season that I am stepping into is that He truly prepares us for every season He takes us to. Even when we walk in complete darkness, blindly excavating deeper into the dark’s overwhelming waves… there is a reason for it. All cheesiness aside, this heartwarming Hallmark card idea is so real in the works of the Lord. Every season is preparatory for the season ahead. It's all gorgeous actually. The very way God orchestrates our life piece by piece, year by year, season by season. The moment you get to find yourself planted in the midst of a season God promised you in the days before, is the moment you wholeheartedly get to declare to yourself,”I was made for this”. I truly believe there is a moment in every Christian's life where it just clicks. The love God has for you just clicks. If you haven't experienced this moment yet, you will, and you will be wrecked just from basking in your small human comprehension of the love of Jesus Christ. The funny thing about trying to comprehend God’s love is that we go about it all the wrong ways as if we could ever fully wrap our puny brains around it in the first place. God doesn't just love us, He IS love. We always hear this Hallmark card line as well, but do we truly take a minute to meditate on it?
God revealed this to me recently. He’s quite the comedian actually. For years, all of my social media passwords have been some kind of concoction made up of “God is love” but it took Him this long to reveal to me that, “Crap, that's actually the truth.” God’s personality is love. Everything He does is literally love. The very first thing to walk this earth was a physical form of love. In deeper thought, the very thing to create existence was love. It’s all around mind blowing and gorgeous at the same time. To know that you, and your puny existence in this giant universe, was masterfully created from flat-out adoration. Your God made you and every single aspect that comes with you.
To elaborate, I have a short personal story that will hopefully illustrate my point a little bit better. For starters, I literally preach sermons in the shower. It's not weird ok. One morning during an intense lecture to my shampoo bottles, God rudely interrupted me. I was going off about how we let the small personality traits of ourselves get in the way of doing what God asked us to do in the first place. God stopped me mid sentence and said “No I made those personality traits.” I started to think about how I am personally. I am extremely structured about most things in my life. I like things to be where they should be at all times and I like things to go the way I planned them out to be. In order for me to feel the end of something, I need about as much verbal closure as I can get (as I am sure most of my friends have experienced time after time with me.) I am confrontational, and I am not afraid to confront someone with even a slight strange feeling I get from them (I haven't always been this way). But God knows this, in fact, He made me this way to begin with. After listing out my qualities that so often get turned into flaws, I started to think about exactly where I was standing in my short life. I had just moved out of my parent’s house on my own terms, I had met a brand new batch of amazing friends, I had finally started to serve in youth ministry as I had been called to do for years now, I had young girls who were looking up to me, and I realized that God had ended a dark and terrible season of my life SO clearly and purposefully. He started a brand new one with literally all brand new beginnings because HE KNEW I needed dramatic closure to begin something new. He knew my personality and he accommodated to it. How freaking loving is that? The God of the entire universe and everything in it accommodated to MY belittling personality trait just so I could move forward in His will peacefully. We serve an accommodating God.
Part of God’s “personality” being love is that He accommodates to what season He, himself, puts us through. I had this funny thought that God is like Barbie in a way. For decades, Barbie releases a new doll replicating different career and characteristics for young girls all over the world. She is a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer. She goes camping, to the zoo and swimming. She can be whatever a young girl dreams of. But essentially, despite whatever disproportioned outfit Barbie is wearing, she is still Barbie. Her mission statement is to serve young girls and their dreams. Like Barbie, God wears several different “outfits” but at the end of the day, He is still God. UNLIKE Barbie, He becomes what we need him to be during that season, not what we want him to be. For me, every season introduces me to a brand new, amazing side of God. I like to believe this is where he accommodates to my type A personality traits again. He knows I need clear beginnings and ends to notice His work. One minute He is your rock and solid foundation that can stand against any insecurity, addiction, and lie. (Psalm 18) The next minute He is the world’s softest comfort spot, catching our tears in a bottle and caring so much despite its circumstantial irrelevance.(Psalm 58)
So now where does this exchange come into play? I first started to meditate on the idea of exchanging with God when I read Psalm 112. A short and sweet chapter that blew open a whole new perspective for me. The Psalm just talks about how blessed of a life a God-fearing person will live. And it blew my mind because so many awesome things are promised to us if we just live our life fearing God. But hold on just a second, the phrase “fear God” freaks a lot of people out. If God is love and wants us so badly, why would He ask us to fear him? What does it mean to fear God? - Fearing God is not to turn away from Him or hide your face from Him when we sin. It is to run to Him with our sin, holding the brokeness and hurt that it caused out in our hands begging Him to take it because it hinders the will He intended for us. The hebrew translation of fear, “Yare” means more than to fear. The definition also says to stand in awe of, and to honor and respect. To fear God just means to respect His Word. That being said, Psalm 112 goes on to say that God fearing people will be blessed with wealth, they will not be shaken, they will be remembered, have steadfast and secured hearts, and their dignity (horn) will be be honored. This is the exchange. A blessed life for honor. The bizarre thing about this exchange, is that it is all for our sake. God doesn't need us to fear Him. He benefits nothing from our pity prayers and wimpy worship. But He adores us so much that He asks nothing more of us. , He’s overjoyed, let alone satisfied with our lousiest praise. In the end, WE are the ones blessed by the exchange. It’s barely an exchange. In exchange for blessings, He asks for honor. As if sending His Son to die on the cross for the sake of our own souls isn't honorable enough.
So friends, I leave you with a challenge this month. This May, I challenge you to live as though you fear God. Day by day, and hour by hour, we should use each hidden and obvious opportunity to honor God. Because at the end of the day, it's the least we can do. Its barely an exchange.
When I chose the title for this piece I struggled so much. I struggled because all I could think about is people misinterpreting the meaning I am trying to get across. The idea is not that the price Jesus paid on the cross is not extraordinary. The exchange I am referring to in this piece is the one we make with God every single day. I will go more in depth with this thought soon, bare with me friend.
One thing God has highlighted to me in this new season that I am stepping into is that He truly prepares us for every season He takes us to. Even when we walk in complete darkness, blindly excavating deeper into the dark’s overwhelming waves… there is a reason for it. All cheesiness aside, this heartwarming Hallmark card idea is so real in the works of the Lord. Every season is preparatory for the season ahead. It's all gorgeous actually. The very way God orchestrates our life piece by piece, year by year, season by season. The moment you get to find yourself planted in the midst of a season God promised you in the days before, is the moment you wholeheartedly get to declare to yourself,”I was made for this”. I truly believe there is a moment in every Christian's life where it just clicks. The love God has for you just clicks. If you haven't experienced this moment yet, you will, and you will be wrecked just from basking in your small human comprehension of the love of Jesus Christ. The funny thing about trying to comprehend God’s love is that we go about it all the wrong ways as if we could ever fully wrap our puny brains around it in the first place. God doesn't just love us, He IS love. We always hear this Hallmark card line as well, but do we truly take a minute to meditate on it?God revealed this to me recently. He’s quite the comedian actually. For years, all of my social media passwords have been some kind of concoction made up of “God is love” but it took Him this long to reveal to me that, “Crap, that's actually the truth.” God’s personality is love. Everything He does is literally love. The very first thing to walk this earth was a physical form of love. In deeper thought, the very thing to create existence was love. It’s all around mind blowing and gorgeous at the same time. To know that you, and your puny existence in this giant universe, was masterfully created from flat-out adoration. Your God made you and every single aspect that comes with you.
To elaborate, I have a short personal story that will hopefully illustrate my point a little bit better. For starters, I literally preach sermons in the shower. It's not weird ok. One morning during an intense lecture to my shampoo bottles, God rudely interrupted me. I was going off about how we let the small personality traits of ourselves get in the way of doing what God asked us to do in the first place. God stopped me mid sentence and said “No I made those personality traits.” I started to think about how I am personally. I am extremely structured about most things in my life. I like things to be where they should be at all times and I like things to go the way I planned them out to be. In order for me to feel the end of something, I need about as much verbal closure as I can get (as I am sure most of my friends have experienced time after time with me.) I am confrontational, and I am not afraid to confront someone with even a slight strange feeling I get from them (I haven't always been this way). But God knows this, in fact, He made me this way to begin with. After listing out my qualities that so often get turned into flaws, I started to think about exactly where I was standing in my short life. I had just moved out of my parent’s house on my own terms, I had met a brand new batch of amazing friends, I had finally started to serve in youth ministry as I had been called to do for years now, I had young girls who were looking up to me, and I realized that God had ended a dark and terrible season of my life SO clearly and purposefully. He started a brand new one with literally all brand new beginnings because HE KNEW I needed dramatic closure to begin something new. He knew my personality and he accommodated to it. How freaking loving is that? The God of the entire universe and everything in it accommodated to MY belittling personality trait just so I could move forward in His will peacefully. We serve an accommodating God.
Part of God’s “personality” being love is that He accommodates to what season He, himself, puts us through. I had this funny thought that God is like Barbie in a way. For decades, Barbie releases a new doll replicating different career and characteristics for young girls all over the world. She is a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer. She goes camping, to the zoo and swimming. She can be whatever a young girl dreams of. But essentially, despite whatever disproportioned outfit Barbie is wearing, she is still Barbie. Her mission statement is to serve young girls and their dreams. Like Barbie, God wears several different “outfits” but at the end of the day, He is still God. UNLIKE Barbie, He becomes what we need him to be during that season, not what we want him to be. For me, every season introduces me to a brand new, amazing side of God. I like to believe this is where he accommodates to my type A personality traits again. He knows I need clear beginnings and ends to notice His work. One minute He is your rock and solid foundation that can stand against any insecurity, addiction, and lie. (Psalm 18) The next minute He is the world’s softest comfort spot, catching our tears in a bottle and caring so much despite its circumstantial irrelevance.(Psalm 58)
So now where does this exchange come into play? I first started to meditate on the idea of exchanging with God when I read Psalm 112. A short and sweet chapter that blew open a whole new perspective for me. The Psalm just talks about how blessed of a life a God-fearing person will live. And it blew my mind because so many awesome things are promised to us if we just live our life fearing God. But hold on just a second, the phrase “fear God” freaks a lot of people out. If God is love and wants us so badly, why would He ask us to fear him? What does it mean to fear God? - Fearing God is not to turn away from Him or hide your face from Him when we sin. It is to run to Him with our sin, holding the brokeness and hurt that it caused out in our hands begging Him to take it because it hinders the will He intended for us. The hebrew translation of fear, “Yare” means more than to fear. The definition also says to stand in awe of, and to honor and respect. To fear God just means to respect His Word. That being said, Psalm 112 goes on to say that God fearing people will be blessed with wealth, they will not be shaken, they will be remembered, have steadfast and secured hearts, and their dignity (horn) will be be honored. This is the exchange. A blessed life for honor. The bizarre thing about this exchange, is that it is all for our sake. God doesn't need us to fear Him. He benefits nothing from our pity prayers and wimpy worship. But He adores us so much that He asks nothing more of us. , He’s overjoyed, let alone satisfied with our lousiest praise. In the end, WE are the ones blessed by the exchange. It’s barely an exchange. In exchange for blessings, He asks for honor. As if sending His Son to die on the cross for the sake of our own souls isn't honorable enough.
So friends, I leave you with a challenge this month. This May, I challenge you to live as though you fear God. Day by day, and hour by hour, we should use each hidden and obvious opportunity to honor God. Because at the end of the day, it's the least we can do. Its barely an exchange.
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