Learning what it means "to be"

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should BE holy and blameless before him." Eph. 1:3

"This is not about what you've done, but what's been done for you,
This is not about where you've been, but where your brokenness leads you to."
Tenth Avenue North

Over the past few months, one of the lessons I've been learning is how much I've built my value based upon what I do and not who I am. For so long, I've thought that to be accepted or appreciated or loved, by God and by others, I had to "do" things. For years I viewed my service to Him as something that would cause Him to accept me. My life has always been about "doing."

Over the past six months, God has been stripping me of things in which I placed my value, significance, and security. Things that I have held onto thinking that who I am was made up of these things. This stripping has been painful. I about lost it in the movie theater when watching the Dawn Treader and the part when Aslan begins to "undragon" Eustice (Actually, I cried more in the book because the movie didn't have much on that part). If God is going to transform us, He has to undragon us. He has to take away those things that we cling to and we find value and love in so that we can realize that He alone is all we ever need. It cuts to the core sometime, and the process is more painful than we could ever imagine, but the healing and power of God in those moments is far beyond anything else I've ever know. The silver that comes once the dross is removed is magnificent.

So a stripping has been taking place. God has removed from my life relationships that were a source of security and love and significance. God has removed one of my jobs in which I found a lot of significance and worth based on the things that I did. And now, God is taking away another job where I have worked for four years now. I have found security in this job and my working there made sense logically. But in my devotional time a few weeks ago, I sensed God's work, and His asking me, "If I asked you to give up one of your greatest sources of earthly security, would you do it?" The "undragoning" continues.

So here in this time of feeling open, vulnerable, and uncertain about where things are going and what's happening, there is the greatest sense of expectancy. When I am at the end of myself, all that can happen must come from God alone. And I am so overwhelmingly confident that this is from Him. He is the one that provides the love, the security, the significance, and the value that in many ways has been stripped from me in the sense that I am learning to be no longer about "doing." Life is about "being." The transformation taking place in me has changed how I see people. I see them now not about what they can "do" for me, but how I can see them and love them in the love that God has given me. When I get up in the morning, my prayer is how can I love someone today, not how can I get love from someone. Because as God heals my brokenness, he heals me to pass it on to others. He loves me that I may love Him more and be overflowing in my love to others. How cool is that?