Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Portions and Prizes

This past Sunday we sang "How He Loves"

This song talks about the radical, incredible, inexplicable ways that God loves us.

As we were singing we got to this line "we are His portion, and He is our prize" and I started to chew on this line. And I am still working on it.

But it struck me as interesting because when I think of myself, I don't think of anything special. Paul says in Romans that there "is nothing good in me." So I am what God gets. Broken, incomplete, sinful, self absorbed, impatient, too sarcastic for my own good, insecure, and untrusting.

I almost think of myself as being a wormy apple. There is nothing good inside of me, just holes and pits and tunnels where good things should go.

But here I am. I get the Creator of the universe as my prize. He is all knowing, all powerful, capable of destroying the world, or raising people from the dead. Words can't describe how good, great, wonderful, and loving He is. God is my prize.

Seems a little bit off balance.

But then I realize that God doesn't look at me the way that I see me. He doesn't see me for my shortcomings and faults, He sees me as whole and complete. He sees the potential that I hold for doing His bidding.

Like when he used a doubter like Sarah in her old age to give birth to a nation, the Sarah who laughed when she was spoken to by the angels. Or Noah, who was seen as the only Godly man of his time, got drunk and passed out after getting out of the Ark. Or King David, who slept with another man's wife, then sent him to the front lines to die, but was said to be a man after God's own heart. Or Peter, who denied Jesus right after saying he never would, became the rock that the Church was built on. Or Paul, who as a Jew killed many Christians, became the author of most of the letters of the New Testament.

God uses screw ups. God sees us differently. God sees me differently.

He sees what I will become and says "it is very good" and He is satisfied with me. I am His portion.

I should start seeing me the way God sees me.