I am making a new purse.
We are having special meetings at church.
These are related.
Life Action is a team that has taken over my church. But that's not a bad thing; that's what they are supposed to do. They are preachers, musicians, family pastors, and children's ministry workers that travel from church to church bringing a special message of personal revival. While the team is here, we don't have to cover the music, or preschool, or anything. The team takes care of it all so that the church folks can just attend the service and listen.
There are special meetings every night except Friday and Saturday for two weeks. It's not an old-fashioned revival, with a pulpit-pounding preacher thundering for the audience to walk the aisle. It's not about evangelism, but about personal, individual revival for members of the church.
We spent the first few meetings talking about what prevents revival and what kind of heart God revives. In the revival prevention area, I heard many things that I considered part of my personality, not anything so nasty as sin: stubbornness, claiming my rights, and insisting that I am right, among others. After an honest inventory, I wondered how I think I'm such a great person, when there are so many things wrong in so many areas of my life.
After these sessions that seemed about as reviving as getting repeatedly whacked with a two-by-four (the Spirit's conviction! Ouch!), we had a message about grace last night. It was wonderfully refreshing to hear that grace is the power and desire to do what God wants. I've felt guilty about not wanting to read my Bible, not wanting to pray, not wanting to do what may be right. But just like I can ask for God's grace in other areas, I can ask for the desire to do what He wants me to do. It doesn't mean that I won't read the Bible if I don't feel like it. It was just a freeing realization that God's grace, the grace that covers me, is available to me whenever I ask for it. I don't need to feel guilty that I need grace! Thank you, Lord!
Tonight we had a talk about confession and repentance. We had a long list of things, a kind of checklist or inventory to remind us of things that we need to confess. I stopped checking after the first 18 boxes or so; out of 70-something sins, if I had that many so far, I might as well just go through and confess each one unless I found an exception. I never realized how much ratty junk there was in my life.
I have been constructing a purse for the past couple of weeks. I haven't had much time to work on it, but I spent some more time on it this week and now it's almost done. It's related to a project I finished a few months ago: a purse made out of old ties.
The last project, the purse I carry now, is one that I made out of ties Scott bought for me at the charity shop. I found a pattern on the internet, and modified it slightly (I like outside pockets and a zipper instead of a magnetic snap-flap) to make a one-of-a-kind handbag. It's huge, though, and pretty heavy, even when it's relatively empty. So I thought I'd use the scraps left from that project to make another one.
As I was working on my new purse, trying to trim the seams from the beautiful yet horribly difficult lining fabric, I started thinking about my big purse. It's pretty. It has many different colors and textures, handy pockets on the outside, and a nice zipper top. The handle is wide so it doesn't dig into my shoulder. I have gotten oodles of compliments from complete strangers about how nice my purse is.
But I know better.
I know that spot on the zipper where I had to cut it off because it was too long, then sew it up so that the zipper couldn't fly off the end.
I can point out the places it's fraying because I couldn't finish the seam properly.
The zipper doesn't go all the way to the end, leaving a little spot unfinished on the zipper extending fabric, so that fabric frays and there's a small hole.
I see the crooked seams, the unfinished spots, the handle that never got finished the way I wanted, and a dozen other things that no one else notices.
But I notice. Because I made it. I wanted it to be better than that. When other people look at it, they see the contrasting colors and the unique design. When I look at it, I see how it has fallen short of the standard.
*Bing!* There's the connection. It connected in my head just as slowly as it has connected here. That's why these church meetings are so good and important; they're helping me see some of the frayed edges that I haven't let God sew up properly. They're a constant eyesore to him, but I've been able to overlook them, only noticing the nicer parts of myself.
Now the magnifying glass is out, and I've been forced to see my sin for what it is: plain, ugly, putrid, sickening sin.
But God doesn't point out these things to sink me beneath waves of despair. He hasn't thrown me out. He wants better for me. He wants to fix the problem, not just with patches and fabric glue, but by re-making me entirely, into the image of His Son, Jesus.
And He will. He promised.
I can rest, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you [and me!] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."(Philippians 1:6)
