Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2
Have you ever been invited somewhere and questioned whether or not you would truly belong? When my husband and I were asked to attend a fancy political dinner my first thought was, “But I have nothing to wear”. I knew this farm girl didn’t have the right attire to attend such an event. So I went on a search for the perfect dress. I was looking for something classy, definitely slimming, and it had to coordinate with my husband’s navy suit. Finding the dress proved easy, wearing it confidently in a crowd where I felt I didn’t quite fit – a whole other story.
As I walked through the large ballroom doors with flowing fountains and marble fireplaces, my eyes nervously scanned the crowd. Oh, I had the right attire, but my mind was still telling me “You don’t belong”. Everything in me wanted to run out of that ballroom slip out of my high heel shoes and right back into the comfort of my old muddy muck boots!
We do this all the time with healing. We start to take on a whole new look and then our mind convinces us we don’t belong.
If we look the Truth is easy to find, but confidently wearing the new Truth God reveals to our heart proves to be a much harder task. The process looks something like this: we become aware of the debris in our heart, we’ve open our hurt before God and received a new healing TRUTH, but then doubt and fear creep in and we questioned could this really be true?
God has the perfect dress (Truth) designed just for us ready to put on. The problem is our old pesky mindsets fight hard to be heard. We are sure others will see we are just posers; as our mind screams, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TRYING TO WEAR THAT FANCY DRESS?
We struggle to believe we are chosen, forgiven, accepted, loved, approved of, worthy, wanted, and invited by the very King of the ball. Then we run like Cinderella back to the comfort of the rags we’ve always known; thinking this isn’t possibly how God sees me.
Rebuilding: Opening Our Mind
In the last three post, we’ve been looking at the construction process to guide our understanding of healing. First, we saw how the builder scans the land and identifies the debris that needs cleared away. Then once the builder removes the barriers, he is ready to pour the new foundation so that the framing can begin. When we scan the landscape of our heart and place our hurt before God, a new view suddenly can be seen. The problem is this new view is so different than what we have always known that we struggle to accept it.
This is the dilemma we all face in the third stage of healing. Rebuilding, is about opening our mind to the Truth God reveals and then constructing a whole new way of seeing ourselves based on His view.
The rebuilding phase of healing we focus on transforming our thinking! God’s perspective of us must now become the foundation we build upon. This building block is one of the most challenging phases because old patterns are ingrained and continue to fight for their place. Our first inclination is to reject anything new and contradictory to the beliefs we have always held. A real tug-of-war will happen within us as we are learning to let go of the old and embrace the new and unfamiliar. Romans 12:2 encourages us to let God transform us by changing the way we think!
Owning our new look takes time. When you discover God’s perspective in this process the challenge will be learning how to own it in your heart and wear it with confidence. We have to learn to clothe ourselves in His Truth. Colossians 3 tells us to “Clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience … and LOVE”.
You can’t clothe yourself in something that you don’t believe exist for you. If you don’t first receive God’s love for you, or His tenderhearted mercy, kindness, gentleness, and patience towards you, then you will never learn to view yourself through His eyes. He loves you. He longs to be kind to you and gentle with your hurts. He is patient when you mess up and He can’t wait for you to allow His mercies to flow freely to you every morning!
The thing is when I walked into that ballroom that night, my dress was perfect. The problem was I was waiting for my heart and mind to see it. When God looks at you, all He sees is how beautifully you fit in. We have to realize that we cannot continue to wear the rags of our old limiting mindsets and expect to accept our new look. When we begin to see ourselves through His eyes, a whole new world we never believed could exist for us comes true. So my prayer for you is that you will learn to walk confidently in who you are in Christ and that His Truth will become known in your heart and owned in your mind.
Task of the week:
I love the idea of the scripture tattoos because we simply need a constant reminder of how God sees us in order to transform our thinking to HIS. Learning to strengthen God’s perspective requires repetition and LOTS OF IT! We can’t keep old clothing hanging around putting them back on whenever we need comfort and expect to have a new look. You need to clear out your closet and intentionally choose to clothe yourself in how God sees you. 2 Corinthians 10:5 holds the key to freedom in our mind by telling us that anything that doesn’t line up with God’s truth we tear it down and take it captive so that our thoughts become obedient to God’s view!
Identify what thoughts you need to tear down in your life and throw out of your closet. Anything that doesn’t line up with how God sees you is your cue to discard it! Get up every morning and choose to put on His Truth. Let His truth be a constant reminder of who and whose you are. Post it EVERYWHERE! Be persistent and keep at it until what you see in the mirror is what He sees.
Be Blessed ~ Be a Light
P.S. Click the title below to view a resource I have found to be a helpful guide in the healing process:
A Guide For Listening and Inner Healing Prayer: Meeting God In The Broken Places
by Rusty Rustenbach