Heroes & Zeroes

I was talking with a friend, AJ, today about what I have learned about me through my failed marriage and divorce. I was telling AJ that I didn't see my husband as a hero and I didn't treat him as such. That by not doing that I was in essence disrespecting him as a person. AJ mentioned that my husband's actions didn't seem to warrant me treating him like a hero.

That is the way the world works....you are only perceived as your actions warrant. Jesus doesn't operate that way. We are all sinners, but Jesus doesn't see us as sinners. He sees past our sins, past our weaknesses and failures, He sees us as the children of God, the children of the King that we are. That is one thing I didn't do with my soon to be ex-husband. I only saw his fault and failures and I treated him according to what I saw.

When we let our eyes or glasses get clouded with past hurts, past failures, past disappointments we don't see clearly. Our vision is muddles with the past and sometimes present hurts, failures and disappointments. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to cleanse our vision. How does He do that? Well the first step is acknowledging that we can't handle this on our own, that we need our Savior to do this for us. The only thing we can save, and we can't always do it successfully, is money or something tangible. Only Jesus can save us from our sins, hurts, failures and disappointments.

Secondly we need to surrender all control of the hurts, failures, disappointments and sins over to Him. We surrender our lives and all the control therein over to Him. We humans tend to see surrender as a weakness and in an essence perhaps it is, but when we surrender our weaknesses to Him we get HIS strength in exchange. We get the good end of the deal...He gets our junk. It makes me think of what Granny always said...."making a silk purse out of a sows ear." Jesus takes our junk and makes it into something beautiful that can be re-used to help someone else. Jesus invented re-cycling....sorry side thought there.

When we surrender all of this stuff He has the opportunity to cleanse our vision and make it like His. This makes me hopeful for the future. As I allow Him to cleanse and purge me of all the worldly beliefs that rule how I operate then I get re-cycled into His image....I get recreated into a person that can be a blessing to someone else' life. There is the hope of loving and being loved again...finally having the person He is grooming in the same way for me. There is hope.

Holy Spirit I surrender all control and ownership of my hurts, failures, weaknesses and disappointments both past & present. Remake and reshape me into the person You desire for me to be. Cleanse my vision so that I no longer see others through the murky glasses & eyes that have been clouded by the circumstances of this life. Let me see people as You see them...as heroes, conquerors, princes, & princesses. I surrender control of my emotions and allow You the freedom to help me react as you would to circumstances and people so I no longer react out of the past hurts, failures and disappointments. I desire to be a delight and blessing to You and to others. Let it be according to Your word in Jesus' name.