This is my life story right here. I’m grieved when I look back and see all the years my pursuit of perfection robbed me of living. Wholeness by far is the better pursuit. For it is obtainable! Isaiah 53 speaks so clearly on the matter. The prophet tells us why Jesus suffered for you and for me. Verse 4 begins by saying “Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down.” All so that in verse 5 we could experience something unfathomable. It’s right here a promise for you and for me! “He was beaten so we could be WHOLE. He was whipped so we could be HEALED.”
Friends you will spend your whole life chasing the unobtainable if what you seek is perfection. But wholeness that is an entirely different story. It can be yours. It can be mine! One definition of wholeness is “Being completely free of wound or injury with nothing missing and everything complete…” Another version says wholeness is “the state of forming a complete and harmonious whole; unity.”
I don’t think many of us believe we can be wound free with nothing missing within us. One of my life verses is Psalm 34:10. It tells me that as I pursue the truest source of wholeness, I will lack nothing. “Those who passionately pursue the Lord will never lack any good thing.”
This, my friends, is a daily pursuit. It is learning to find your own rhythms of rest in his presence so that the grime of life doesn’t continue to build layer upon layer within your heart. I assure you I practice what I preach. I begin my day with rest. I sit in silence and stillness letting my body release the tension it holds from the day before and I find myself able to finally catch my breath.
Then I do what Julia Cameron calls “morning pages”. I let all my thoughts, the good, the bad, the ugly flow onto three uninterrupted pages. My inner critic does not get to make changes or point out mistakes. My thoughts are just allowed to spill onto the page before me freely and openly.
Next, I let God reveal what needs to be healed within. Maybe a little resentment here, little envy there, or maybe something much older like a childhood wound triggered from a hurtful interaction the day before. One thing is always constant. God never fails to lighten my load. He promises in Matthew 11:28-30 to do so-to carry away the burdens I bring to him and refresh my soul.
Then maybe I soak in the truth he revealed a little more and let it sink deeper or I return to a scripture I’ve already been mining. Mining means stopping to let every word bring life and new awe to your soul over a period of time. Maybe a week, maybe a month. Hey, maybe even a year if your heart so desires.
Then I might read a chapter in a book on a practice I’m trying to grow within me or listen to a song, or take a walk to end my time for the morning. But no matter what there is always a grateful pause, maybe only for a few seconds where I sit and soak in the blessing of what God did in my heart that morning.
It is refreshing to think my wounds don’t have to remain apart of me and I can experience completeness. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I am not saying we will never be wounded. I’m saying the wounds don’t have to remain within us. By pursuing rest (ceasing from your way to open your heart to God’s) and time in his presence, he will lovingly show you want needs released so that you can receive from him all that your heart is longing for. Taking a good honest look allows you to let go. Because his presence is so inviting, accepting, and unbelievably loving you can bear to look.
You see this pursuit for wholeness was never was about what you can do. We always make it so. You won’t find wholeness in your own merit by doing more, accomplishing more or pretending things don’t exist.
No.
It is only found by pursuing wholeness through connecting deeper with God’s heart. It is in his presence that we find completeness for our weakness. It’s handing him what doesn’t belong so that he can show you what is truly within you! I promise it is beautiful. You just haven’t let yourself see it yet.
My hope is that you will begin to pursue and cultivate your own daily rhythms of rest. Maybe today you will pause for a few minutes longer than usual and soak in the beauty of what this passage in Isaiah 53 makes possible. Read it line by line starting with verse 1 and ending at verse 5. There is truth here you don’t want to miss. Truth that deserves more than a passing glance. You won’t regret it.
Be Bold ~ Be a Light