Day 264 of Giving Thanks

The “devastation” I have been through, all has been through my own doing; choices and decisions I willingly made, and actively participated in.  Years ago I gave a book to someone about brokenness, I didn’t read anything except the introduction and a few pages here and there, before giving it to her, and thought “she really needs this”. How arrogant to think that I was not going to need anything like that. I thought I had been to the pit, and now climbing back out – and I became complacent with my God “status”.

My God “status” was “I am a Christian, I am saved”, “I go to church”, “I love God with all my heart and soul”, really? Was that what my daily actions told everyone around me? Did I have integrity enough to believe myself? And in my arrogance, I believed that I was different than the others who lived “I am a Christian, I am saved”, “I go to church”, “I love God with all my heart and soul”.

Today, I know who I am with God, because of God; I understand that it is a relationship of belief and action. “I believe.  I am grateful for what God has given me. I will live my life in gratitude and glorify Him in the process.” I will mess up, be selfish, continue to sin, but I will change through recognition and acknowledgment that change is needed. And, in the process of living my life, walking my journey, He will transform me to be who He designed me to be.

It is this that I am grateful for today.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” ~2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV)

“Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters (MY) live and (I) become like him.” ~2 Corinthians 3:18 (The Message)