When life isn’t going the way you planned it, it’s sometimes hard to see God at work. What my life looks like right now is nothing like what I thought it would or wanted it to look like. It’s messy. I’m broken and confused. Sometimes I’ve thought to myself, “How can God possibly be working in me right now?”
Recently, I stumbled across this quote from Eric Liddell: “Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God’s plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins. He comes in and takes the calamity and uses it victoriously, working out his wonderful plan of love.” After that, it started to make a bit more sense. My circumstances are not a surprise to God. And they are certainly not going to let it stop Him from loving me, transforming me and using me for His glory.
God can use the mess, the hurt, the sadness, the brokenness of your life to do amazing things.
When you say, “I am ruined,” God says, “I will use you.”
When you say, “I’m not good enough,” God says, “you’re perfect for the task.”
When you say, “I’m scared,” God says, “I will give you peace.”
When you say, “I am weak,” God says, “you have my power within you.”
When you say, “I don’t know if I can carry on,” God says, “I will carry you.”
At my church, we’ve been studying Ephesians over the last few weeks. It’s served as confirmation to me that God can and does use people at their lowest times to do His work and to bring glory to Him. Paul is the perfect example of this. God used a broken man to spread His wonderful message about Jesus Christ among so many people. And He can and will do the same with you.
As if that wasn’t enough, God wanted to make sure I’d gotten the message when I sat down to create my entry based on the Eric Liddell quote I’d learned so much from. I created my entry using the stickers and my pen when I suddenly had this idea to paint over the top. I’d never used paint in my bible before but I thought, “How hard can it be?!” So I got my watercolours out and started mixing and painting. When I finished, I was not too happy with my handiwork. It looked like such a mess! I was about to get upset until I realised what I had just been writing about. I prayed that God would use the ruins of my paint mess for His good! When it dried, it didn’t look so bad. I’m still not 100% happy with how it turned out but I am thrilled that it illustrates what I was learning about perfectly! So just as a little side note, if you “mess up” in your bible, please don’t panic. God will use it anyway, I promise you!
