In the next few blog posts, I am going to be sharing a devotional that I purchased last fall. In so many ways it has spoken to me and encouraged me. I’ll leave a link at the end of every one I share in hopes that you’ll purchase your own copy.
Cambria writes in a way that is so natural, relatable and easy to understand. She has been through a lot, an eating disorder and recently a miscarriage. I have followed her for quite some time and you would never know the heartaches she has faced with her exuberant personality. She loves the Lord and shares as much as she can living a healthy lifestyle.
Hope you find the devotional as encouraging as I did.
A Taste of Change
Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for loves sake I prefer to appeal to you. -Philemon 1:8-9
There’s a lot of inescapable stuff we might want to avoid, but it’s necessary. There’s laundry, work, cooking, paying bills, cleaning…I’ll stop there to spare you the never-ending list. On the other hand, there are things we should do but don’t always want to do or remember to do, like pray for ourselves and others, read and study the Scriptures, eat and move to stay healthy, and that list goes on too. Why is it so hard to do the things we know we should do? How do we change that? It seems like right when we move toward change, it happens again: We give up. We lose motivation and go back to our usual ways, even though everything inside of us screams for it to be different.
Deep down, we want to do and be all we were created for. So were told to try harder. Sometimes were told to do the new thing for twenty-one days until it becomes a habit. But if we only needed to focus on behaviour change, we’d all be motivation machines. The truth is, we’re not machines. If we lean into the Creator’s design, we’ll find a clue for the solution hidden in plain sight. We’re human beings. Not human doings. To change anything happening on the outside, we start on the inside. We need a renovation of the heart. And most of us respond to an appeal to that heart-not a command, not a reprimand, but a request made in the purest form, an invitation wrapped in love. Paul knew this and so did Jesus.
This is why it’s so radical when we let Jesus into our lives because we do so through the door of our hearts. An invitation for change waits on the other side. Even if it’s been a while since we’ve let him in, he patiently stands outside our door. We hear his knock and reach for the handle. All the change we’ve wanted to make but haven’t is laid out for him to see. Unfulfilled dreams, unused talents, and a dusty Bible sit on the shelf next to a jar of unspoken prayers and unheard requests we wanted to share but that never got past our lips.
To our surprise, Jesus walks in, yet condemnation never enters the room. His unconditional love and embrace finds us in the middle of our mess as we remind ourselves “This is his home.” He’s not a guest; he’s a resident, our long -acquainted friend. We pick up where we left off, and before he can sit down, our heart spills out before him because we realize how much we’ve missed him. We ask him question after question, and he answers with grace, an unexpected tear makes its way down our cheek…we remember just how kind he really is. He never once looks around at the room; his gaze is fixed on us as he listens. He then leans over to catch our lone tear, and our heart fills with remorse as we lower our head, wondering to ourselves, Why did I close him out for so long?
We look up to discover nothing is the same. Our prayer jar once filled with need after need and question after question is empty. Our dreams are written out. Even the dust has left the building. This place and all that fills it is nothing more than a mirror of our own soul. We realize were made completely new in Christ. Without him at home, our heart is nothing more than a house. The truest part of our being is made alive once again because as soon as he walked in, so did we.
So how do we do what we really want to do? We must first be who we really are. A new creation, in God himself. Because it’s then we find we don’t just write; we become an author. We don’t just dance; we become a dancer. We don’t just run; we become a runner. When we’re in Christ, he changes who we are, which naturally changes what we do. As Jesus said, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). What we do flows from who we are. The dream of doing and being all that’s in our hearts begins when we let him into ours.
Until next time,
Cilla 💕
Conversations with Cilla 