From “Broken Wallflower” to “Spirited Dancer”
“Men throw broken things away, but God never uses anything until He first breaks it.” - Adrian Rogers (Love Worth Finding Ministries)
What a powerful statement! The longer I live, and now as I wait for a broken knee to heal, I realize that without Christ I can do nothing (see John 15:5). The truth of how He and His Word are the only things that will never change and never end are reaffirmed in my life daily (see Hebrews 13:8 and Isaiah 40:8).
In my words, living for Christ is about being totally immersed in Him. Oswald Chambers (a Scottish minister of the late 1800s/early 1900s who is famous for the devotional book, My Utmost For His Highest) defines it as “abandonment to Christ.” Others call it “surrender.” Whatever title you put on it, it is something you are urged to have in your relationship with the Lord.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:1-2, The Holy Bible)
So how do you get to this place of surrender, immersion, and abandonment to Him? The answer is this: When you reach the end of yourself. Truly, it is a different path for everybody who has ever come to this level in their walk with the Lord. Maybe a trial, a temptation, a mountain of ruin, restlessness, heartache, discontentment, loneliness, confusion, or simply the “still, small voice” drove you to see that you needed to belong to Someone greater. Whichever way you come, it is a revelation and a wooing of the Spirit of God. (The Spirit moving upon your heart is the only way you can long for the things of God. The Spirit working inside of you is the only way you can do what pleases God.) So you come and pour out your heart before God and He meets you right where you are. You take your focus off of yourself and you pursue Him. You find yourself seeking Him in everything, meditating on Him and His Words throughout your day, and taking everything to Him in prayer. You're so in love with Him! Your life motto could even be a quote of John the Baptist's: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30, The Holy Bible)
Trust now rests on God’s guidance. Someone sent me an article written by an unknown author and it was about the word “guidance.” It was the best thing I ever read about the subject. The author noticed at the end of the word “guidance” was the word “dance.” In front of “dance” were the letters “G-U-I.” The author immediately thought, “‘G’ could stand for ‘God,’ and then there's ‘U’ and ‘I’...you and I.” The author looked at the word again. “Guidance...God, you and I dance.” The author went on to say that when two people dance, only one needs to lead. The other simply follows. When the two move in this way, there is a flow, a smoothness, a oneness. Trusting in God for guidance can be like dancing with Him. You just let Him lead as you delight in following Him and the moves you make are right and beautiful.
The greatest thing is when you have immersed, surrendered, abandoned yourself to Christ, you find that as you focus on Him and lose sight of yourself, He somehow shapes you into an object of His beauty.
I see the Master walk along the hall and hold His hand out to the broken wallflower. Grab hold of it and become the spirited dancer. Let His Words fall upon your ears and sink down into your heart. Live in His light that He gives out. In His arms, belong to Him, live for Him, abide with Him. You'll find yourself becoming what He wants you to be, what He sees you can be, what He can mold you into.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, The Holy Bible)
This former broken wallflower is now enjoying the dance. I hope you dance, also!
-Eryn Eubanks (September 11th, 2006)