Yesterday, one of our ministry partners joked that he was happy to see that we were finally starting to lose our white skin and get the African skin. He was of course referring to the fact that many of us have some serious sunburns that are peeling. Perhaps it has something to do with the lack of sunscreen that we applied on our beach day Monday.
One of us joked that “The old has gone and the new has come.” As I laughed I realized a serious truth in that statement. We have only been here for a month, but we have all changed and grown in incredible ways. Freedom has been given, perspective has been received, encouragement has been offered, and this is only the beginning. Beyond the overgrown beards and unshaved legs, there is something different about each one of us since we got here. Whether it’s a small lesson we’ve learned, or something huge The Lord has told us, we have all been changed.
The somewhat tragic truth is that we didn’t have to come all the way to Swaziland to receive this growth. God is aching for us to ask him to grow and stretch us, but we must free him up to do that. We stepped out and in doing so we gave God permission to have free reign over our lives.
When you give God a block of marble, he will create a masterpiece. This process comes at the expense of some things: much of the marble will be chiseled away and not used in the final piece, the process takes time, and it isn’t painless. However, we can trust God, the master artist, that the finished product will be so far beyond what we could have imagined.
I challenge you to give God permission to change you. There is so much he wants to teach and grow in you, but you must choose him. Yes, it does hurt sometimes. Breaking yourself down is not a painless process, but you will always be better for it. God has freely given himself to you; The veil was torn. The only thing standing in the way of that fullness in your relationship with Him is something you put there. Give yourself up to God. Let him make you new. This might seem a little daunting, but the start is exceedingly simple: just let your heart say “Lord, I am yours.”
