Surrendered Design

“When you are free to be all that you were created to be then you are really free.”

Loren Thornburg

The rains come down and the curls come out. No matter how much I straighten my hair or use products my naturally curly hair returns to curly when it gets wet.  It is naturally curly and so it will always return to its natural form.  In more ways than our hair we all have a natural design.  No matter how much we want it to be different or try to make it look different our natural design will eventually surface.  It’s how we were created.  It was an intentional design.  Just as I’ve come to embrace my curly hair so too we must embrace our natural design.  It’s beautiful when it happens.  For there we find freedom to be who we were created to be and it just comes naturally.  Not only does it come naturally but it's needed.  It’s time to surrender to your design.  

“For it was You who created my inward parts;  You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

Psalm 139:13 HCSB

You were created by the Creator of the Universe with a particular design in mind.  It was not an accident, it was on purpose.  So often all we can see is the hard parts of how we were created.  The parts we don’t like and the ways we wish we looked different both inside and out.  Yet, God created you.  I don’t always understand God and all of His ways but one thing that is clear throughout scripture is that He is intentional and He has a bigger picture in mind than what we see.  So what if we started seeing the other side of those hard parts?  What if we started seeing the good in them? Now what do you see?  God created you on purpose for a greater purpose.  In order to enjoy the greater purpose we have to embrace every intricacy of our design and our Designer.  Surrender to Him and His design of you and your life.  Start seeing what He sees.  Start seeing His great design.  

Welcome the Process

“Sometimes it’s more than where we are going, but what we find on the way.”

Loren Thornburg

Although there are many seasons of life I would rather not repeat it is often those same seasons that I don’t want to delete.  I did not enjoy the process of figuring out what I was going to do after grad school.  It felt so purposeless and confusing.  I wasn’t sure I would ever find anything I enjoyed.  Although it sounds nice to have been able to fast forward past the waiting to the part where I find a job I love, I learned so much in that season that I wouldn’t want to miss.  I found the hard is what allowed me to enter into what I love.  It was in that season that I learned to wait and persevere.  It was also there that I learned more about what I love.  All of those things were essential for what came next.  This is how life goes with seasons of necessary hard in ways we couldn’t imagine.

“It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where we was going…They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it…” Hebrews 11:8-13 NLT

Abraham never saw the things God promised would happen.  Yet it seems what he found on the way to those promises was more than enough.  He found God, a faithful God he could put faith in regardless of what he saw.  Abraham obeyed without knowing where he was headed.  Does that sound familiar?  God often calls His people to step out in faith without knowing what’s coming next.  Abraham didn’t even ever see exactly what God was doing and where he was taking him, yet he still held onto faith.  He could welcome it from a distance without reaching the goal he set out towards because of his faithful God.  This is our same faithful God that calls us out into the unknown and asks that we trust and let Him be enough regardless of where He takes us.  God has places He wants to take us, but what’s more He wants us to find Him on the way.  For Him it’s always been about relationship with Him.  God knows that at our core that is more than we could have ever imagined.  

Different Kind of Freedom

“True freedom is not when I get where I want to be.  No, true freedom is when I don’t need to be anywhere else than where I am.”

Loren Thornburg

The illusion is that we will feel more free once certain circumstances align.  There is nothing wrong with desiring things to look different.  It’s so good to have dreams and goals and to work towards them.  Yet, what I am finding as I reach my goals is that those things won’t set me free.  I didn’t even know that I thought they would, until I’m disappointed when they don’t.  It seems the only true freedom is when I don’t need those things to be free.  Circumstances will constantly change.  Even if I reach my goal, sooner or later there will be another one.  Freedom will always be one step away.  So then, the only true freedom is when right now is enough.  When where I am at is enough, then I find I am free.

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”

Matthew 1:23 NLT

It’s in His name.  Immanuel means God is with us.  This seems to be God’s greatest desire: to be with us.  He wants to be with you.  Often times I desire to be fixed.  I think this will bring me the freedom I desire.  Yet, no where does God say He needs me to be fixed.  No where does it say that freedom comes when I have it all together or when I’ve overcome all the obstacles.  The truth sets us free.  The truth is that God is with us.  At this very moment God is with you.  He’s not waiting for you to be fixed and so neither should you.  He is waiting for you to let Him be enough.  He is waiting for you to let Him be with you, all of you.  He is waiting, inviting you to freedom, right now in this very moment.  It’s a different kind of freedom than what we once thought.  It’s one that invites you to let Him be the “with you” God. He may not fix you but He will join you.  When that’s enough, then we are truly free.  

Space for Sorrow

“Sorrow is the bridge out of despair.”

Loren Thornburg

We avoid pain at all costs.  Whatever it takes to feel good, unless of course it takes pain.  The problem is that the relief from the pain that we desire requires pain itself.  Sorrow is required.  Time won’t heal it, avoiding won’t heal it, and pretending won’t heal it either.  While these things may distance us from the pain they have no power to heal the pain.  It is the thing we avoid most, sorrow, that leads us out of pain.  Give yourself space for sorrow.  It just might be the bridge to the joy you’ve been longing to find.  

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?…I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

Psalm 13: 1,8 ESV

David is a man of great sorrow.  All throughout the psalms we hear his sorrow and pain.  He doesn’t hide it, or pretend that he is okay, or apologize for feeling mad.  What David does is go to the Lord with his sorrow.  It is in the process of lamenting to the Lord that he finds his way to truth.  David goes from feeling forgotten by the Lord to praising the Lord.  He finds his way back to praise through the space of sorrow.  God invites us to do the same.  Share your sorrow with Him.  He loves to relate with you in your joy and in your pain.  No level of anger, frustration, grieving or sorrow is too great for Him.  Follow David into the pain and back to the truth.  

Invisible Movement

“It’s your handle on what you can’t see that helps you make sense of what you do see.”

Loren Thornburg

It’s happening all around us but we can’t see it: Light traveling from the sun to earth, sound waves vibrating through the air, gasses flowing creating wind.   We don’t see the movements happening but none of us would argue of the reality of light, sound and wind.  So much of life exists in these invisible movements.  The connection in relationships, the change of someone’s heart, the passion and drive within one’s spirit.  We see the effects of these things but we can’t see them, they can’t be held.  What we see or understand does not tell us the full story.  So then we are left to conclude that there is more going on than what is visible. These invisible movements are all around us.  It seems then we must trust in the things which we cannot see or understand.  It is not about how we handle what we see but how we trust in what we don’t know and can’t see.

“The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.  It’s our handle on what we can’t see.”

Hebrews 11:1 Message

While God is invisible His effects are not.  He is like the wind that we can’t always see but we also can’t deny the evidence of His presence.  Creation begs us to acknowledge Him, our changed lives scream of Him,  and the complexity of our bodies plead for us to marvel at Him.  We may not see His hand but we sure can see the works of His hand.  With all of this evidence of the God we can’t see we can move forward through times that feel hard to see.  He is a God of invisible movements and yet He is a God we can trust.  We can trust when we see no answer or resolution in sight.  We can trust Him, the One who is trustworthy, because He is our firm foundation when nothing else is firm.  Even when life doesn’t make sense…He does.  

Price of Worth

“Things of greatest worth require from us things of greatest price.”

Loren Thornburg

Worth can be defined as anything successful to repay any effort, trouble or expense.  This means that anything of worth requires, effort, trouble or expense.  We often want one without the other.  We want the things of worth but we don’t want it to require too much effort and certainly not much trouble.  So often times we give up and give in to that which the process requires of us.  Yet, what if those hard places are not only reaching us towards our goals but also forming us into the people we need to be in order to maintain it?  So then, the hard places are never wasted, they are never not worth it for they are attaining for us something so much bigger than we ever thought.  Things of greatest worth will repay us for all that they required from us.  It may not be the way we thought, but it will never be wasted.

“…he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” 

Hebrews 11:6 NKJV

God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  Sometimes seeking God requires more from me than I want to give.  Yet, what I forget is that God is after something so much greater than my comfort, He is after my freedom.  Freedom isn’t true freedom until it’s total.  It requires all of me which is often painful.  This pain is not punishment, it’s pursuit.  You’re being pursued because you’re worth it.  He sees you: every effort, every tear, every heartache.  Nothing gets missed.  He sees it and He rewards it. Nothing is wasted.  Every time you seek Him it’s worth it.  For it’s always worth it to diligently seek the One of greatest worth who says, ‘You are worth it.’

Glory in Reality

“Everything in your life can be used as an ingredient for something beautiful.”

Loren Thornburg

Glory is something that is magnificent, beautiful, or distinctively special.  This summer I walked up the Great Wall, jumped off the base of the Gaza Pyramids and stood underneath the Eiffel Tower.  One thought prevailed throughout, “I never dreamed I would be here…”  It wasn’t ever a thought for what I wanted to do or who I wanted to become. These moments make it easy to see the glory that is my reality.  Yet, what about when our lives aren’t in these moments of awe.  What about when we are walking through sickness, grieving in heartache and loss, disappointed in unfulfilled longings?  It’s hard to see any glory in those realities.  Yet, the truth is that glory remains.  For the beauty of glory is also found in these hard places if you’re willing to see it.  Something beautiful can certainly come out of pain, sorrow and disappointment.  Even now, there is glory in your reality.  See the beauty, see the glory in where you are now.  

“…It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

John 9:3 NASB

It’s the story where the disciples asked Jesus who is to blame, what sin is responsible for the man’s blindness.  Jesus’ response brings such freedom, but also something hard to understand.  What freedom in knowing that often our struggles are not a result of our own sin, but something quite the opposite.  The hard things we walk through our often so that God can be seen and known.  I love how The Message says it, “You’re asking the wrong question…Look instead for what God can do...For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light.  I am the world’s Light” (John 9:3-5).   We too are often missing the point.  We desire comfort and happiness but God desires something so much bigger.  He desires our wholeness, our intimacy and His glory. It's hard to understand the ways that He does this and hard to see Him through all of the pain. However, we can trust that He is making something beautiful out of us.  Yes, He is making something beautiful out of you.  There is truly glory in your current reality.  Let the works of God be displayed in your life.  

May your life echo this cry:  "I give it all to you God, trusting that You'll make something beautiful out of me." (Nothing I Hold On To/Climb by Will Reagan)