Lately I have really been struggling with the idea of not being perfect. I know that sounds dumb, because we all know that no one but Jesus was perfect, so why do I continue beating myself up? I have found it is because I’ve allowed Satan to have a strong hold in my life in this area, and I will NO LONGER continue to do that. God has taught me that we all fall short of his glory {Romans 3:23} and it’s not about how far we fall, but how fast we get back up, dust ourselves off, and keep walking towards him.
God has shown me something incredible, he has shown me that no matter how far I have fallen, he still loves me. He still is willing to claim me, and hold me close to him. He still calls me His daughter. He has taught me that I am perfect for whom he created me to be and that I must no longer bring myself down for not being good enough; because I am. He created me in his image and I can no longer doubt what he’s done for me.
One day I was praying and God kept bringing the image of a butterfly to me, but I just pushed it out of my mind. Then the next thing I knew there was a butterfly sitting on my knee and I knew that there was something about this that He wanted me to see. So I started praying about butterflies, and God gave me this amazing concept. We all start out as caterpillars, nothing special about us. We then begin to get hurt in life and we build up walls, also like the cocoon that caterpillars build up around themselves. While doing some research I learned that while a caterpillar is in it’s cocoon it surrounds itself with it’s own feces, this is how it gets all it’s beautiful colors. This reminded me of what we as humans do, we fill our lives with crap until we can no longer hold on anymore. Eventually we must turn to God and he breaks down those walls around us. The caterpillar breaks through it’s cocoon and emerges as this beautiful creature. Once we allow God to remove us from our cocoons, we too are a new creation and we are amazing.
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
He heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
The cords of death entangled me,
The anguish of the grave come upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord;
“O Lord, save me!”
The Lord is gracious and righteous;
Or God is full of compassion.
The Lord protects the simple-hearted;
When I was in great need, he saved me.
Be at rest once more, O my soul,
For the Lord has been good to you.
For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
My feet from stumbling,
That I may walk before the Lord
In the land of the living.
Psalm 116
This psalm really speaks to me because it feels like it is talking about my life. I called out to my father and he was there to listen and help me through the trouble times. I was so overcome with death, and sin but he lifted me out of that. The verse goes on to talk about how can we ever repay the father for what he has done for us, and sometimes I really have a hard time with this. We as humans are always looking to be paid back. When we do something for someone we cannot just be satisfied with that, no we believe that, that person is in debt to us and must somehow repay us. When it comes to God he gave the most self-less gift he could, he gave his ONLY son for us. How could we ever repay him for such a HUGE gift? All he wants is for us to live a Christ centered life. He wants us to put Christ at the center of our lives, and yet many of us won’t even give him that. We must really take a look at our lives, and decide what is important to us.
I challenge you to cry out to your father and ask him to help you see what walls you have built up in order to protect yourself. Then once he reveals those walls to you, you must do the hardest part of all and ask him to break those down, so that you can emerge as a beautiful creation in him. If we stay stuck in our cocoons we can never be used for God’s glory and his son dying becomes pointless. I challenge you to trust in the Lord, and if you are willing to do this you will become a much stronger person in the end. You will be a much stronger Christian.
By Kendra Beachy
