A Diamond In the Rough - What I learned about EBay, Barbies, and becoming God's beloved

"While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

I have a confession. I used to be an EBay vendor.  Yep, It’s true. I love garage sales, and old dusty treasures that most people would rather discard. To me, they are “diamonds in the rough” and I find it crazy satisfying when others see value in those nostalgic-somethings too.  I guess that’s why selling things on EBay was such a good fit for me back in the day.   I sold everything from old Champion Juicers, to toy tractors, and old hats.  It was fun to find discarded treasures and give them another chance at life.  It was usually a bit of a gamble too, because no matter what I originally paid, the real value was always determined by the highest bid at the end of the auction.

I remember the day I picked up two boxes of Barbie dolls at a garage sale.  My husband must have thought I was crazy when I spent just about all we had left in the budget on them.  (Thankfully payday was only two days away!)  I had no idea what was in the boxes, but I handed the man $25.00, piled them in my car and drove away with a new treasure.

That night, I took my first look at that investment as I unpacked the boxes. What a mess! A Ken doll with chewed up legs and a missing arm, a Barbie head with no body, dolls I didn’t recognize, old clothes and accessories that seemed faded and worthless!  It didn't help that my husband sat three feet away from me while I scrubbed layers of dirt off these old things for who knows how long. He had to be wondering why he married such a crazy person!  I remember wishing I'd waited until the next day when he was at work.  That way I could hide the grime of some of it!  But Barbies hold intrinsic value sometimes, and maybe there was value hiding underneath some of this dirt and grime. 

The pressure was getting to me as I scrubbed, Which is why when I found a pair of small red shoes requiring no cleaning, I took a picture, went to the computer and listed them on the spot.  Only in my hurry I accidentally added an extra zero to the starting bid.  immediately I realized what I did and went to change the amount from $20.00 to $2.00.  However, to my surprise they were already purchased!  I was shocked!  (Apparently, if the bottom image says "Made in Japan" , its a big deal!)  Who knew that a tiny pair of red plastic shoes would sell for more than the real pair I had sitting in my closet! So, I listed a few more things.  The Barbie without a body…she sold for $52! And that chewed-up Ken doll?  Someone purchased him for $73!  There were clothes that sold by the outfit for over $150, cars and Francie dolls for even more! (turns out the unknown dolls were Francie and Midge... and also a big deal!) In the end, my little investment of twenty-five “junkie” dollars turned into over $2,500! 

Now you might be wondering why I shared this story on a Saturday’s Blog. After all, the story's interesting but why put it into a spiritual formation blog? Here’s why:  To many, those Barbies looked like old, dirty, discarded junk.  I certainly had no idea what they were worth until I knew what someone was willing to pay for them.  The people who bought them understood their real value. And that’s MY story!  It’s YOUR story too! ...For God SO LOVED the world that He gave his one and only son...He became the highest bidder.

Like the dusty treasures I used to find for EBay, we are like diamonds in the rough. Each of us hold intrinsic beauty and value that come from being HIS. But, much like what I found in those boxes, we may look at our life and see all the mess and blemishes and devalue our worth. sometimes the pressure gets to us as we try and scrub out blemishes by acting the part of someone who has it all together; we want to hide like I wanted to hide the dirty boxes from my husband. But there is something more profound than our mess. Even when our circumstances and broken ways of living shroud us in muck, God finds crazy joy in redeeming our story.

In your messiest condition, someone saw you and wanted you.   HE is the one who sits with you in the mess and lovingly tends to your dusty story; redeeming it for something beautiful! You were made in his image. Your value was determined on the cross. Your potential has resurrection power! 

 Scripture says it this way,

…”He rewrites the text of my life when I open the book of my heart to His eyes…He makes my life complete when I place all the pieces before him…He stood me up on a wide-open field, and I stood there saved, surprised to be love.”  (Ps 18: 25,21,20 – in that order)

What are the messy parts of your story?

Ask God to show you how to open up your heart to His eyes

Let him love you in the mess, tend to the shame, and lead you into something/someone new.

After all, we love because He first loved us! (1 John 4:19)

False-fires

This is a continuation of previous posts beginning with "Burned Out"

"So if you have been raised into union with Christ, look around, pay attention to where Christ is in charge. Set your mind on God's reality not on the things of the earth, for you've died to that stuff. And the life that you now have is hidden with Christ in God so that when he is revealed, then your real life, your true self will be revealed in the light of his glory." Col 3:1-3

 When God began the process of building a "new-wine"  way of life in me, the strain of my then present way of life felt all-the-more pronounced. Something was missing and wrong.  Where was the promised Joy of John 10:10? Why did it feel like I was forever circling around the same traps of unhealthy habits and conflict. "Victory in Jesus" seemed a pipe-dream.  In the discontentment, God was inviting me into a journey to discover what it meant to live freely and lightly with Christ and know His unforced rhythms of grace and abundant Joy (Matt 11:29-30).  Though, the path looked oddly different than those promises.  While I strained for God as crushing circumstances forced the unseen to the surface,  I simply didn't have it in me to "fake it" anymore.   In short order the false motivations behind my activity fell under fire.  If I was to learn how to desire Christ and companion with Him, then I had to ask a few questions... why I was doing what I was doing.  What was behind my choices and the activity that flowed from them?  

For a long time I couldn't identify what flowed directly from desire or joy, or my honest and true "self".  Much of what I did was a response to obligation, fear, or image management.  It was these “false-fires” that needed to be acknowledged.  False-fires occur when the activity we do feeds a false part of us.  The False part of us can be called the “should-self” or the “sensational-self”.  The “should-self” is who we believe we should be in relation to God and others but not who we really are.   So much of what I did had a corrupted or false driving component of “should” to it and flowed out of who I thought I should be or how I thought I should act.  The “sensational-self” is the self that makes decisions based on whether or not it will provide a sense of being special or sensational.  It's the part of me that wants to impress others.  Both feed a false sense of purpose.

           The truth is, our sense of purpose can only come from a transformed life in Christ but before that, our sense of being loved and special can only come as we encounter God in a deeply personal way-a way in which we hear from Him, "You are my beloved".  We love because God "first loved us".  Any other foundation is unstable and false.  It can and will ignite false-fires within us.  False-fires drive us in a way that is dangerously close to the real thing but they aren't sincere nor do they fully satisfy.  I longed for the "real-fire", "first-loved" life of Christ meant to burn uniquely within me, but how could I find it when all these other false-fires burned so brightly out of control? 

Hebrews 4:12-13 says this,

 “God's word is alive and working and is sharper than a double-edged sword. It cuts all the way into us, where the soul and the spirit are joined, to the center of our joints and bones. And it judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts. Nothing in all the world can be hidden from God. Everything is clear and lies open before him, and to him we must explain the way we have lived.”

            Out of this passage flowed the prayer of my heart.  “God, show me why I do what I do.  Stop me if it's not initiated by you.  Give me the strength to let my ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and my ‘no’ be ‘no’.  Show me your fire, meant to burn uniquely within me.”  

Now normally I would be ending this entry about now but... I want to warn you that by praying the prayer above, fierce uprisings may occur.  God’s will encounters ours and often the two do not agree, but take heart! That battle of the wills is at least real!  God does not want our “should-self”. It isn't real - obligation has never coincided with honesty and love...its strange how we mix that up.  Nor does God need our "sensational-self". He already delights in us!  ...How can He love and transform us when what we bring to Him is a portrayal of what we should or want to be, but isn't really who we are?  God is fully aware of our imperfect real-self, and He's altogether elated to companion with that person.   It is our real-self that He calls "beloved".  That broken, messed up part of you that you don't like...He loves! That's who He accepts, and desires to make new.  It is only our real-self that has the capacity to receive his "new-wine" life.   It is only our real self that can truly desire Him. It is the unhindered, unadorned beloved child within us that holds the flint to be ignited with His fire, burning ever brighter with His joyfully redemptive story of life, purpose and hope.  Being honest helps us extinguish what is false and allows God to refine and rekindle the "real". 

So I must ask...What are some of the "false-fires" that burn within you?  How might God be inviting you to something different?

Here's a link to a song that I often return to when confronting "false-fires" within.  Maybe you would like it too :)  http://youtu.be/god9flc_xbk