Word of the Year
In 2011, inspired by Kia and her friend Carrie, I began a life changing project. It’s my Word of the Year project. Choose one word (inspired by God) that you want to see changed or added into your life.
In 2011, I chose the word Freedom. Risk was my word for 2012. This year, my word has been Transformation. A couple of thoughts:
- Expect a follow-up post in the future with a listing of all the posts I’ve done on this topic or lessons I’ve learned about individual words.
- My learning this year was stunted because I haven’t been consistently writing, which helps me to capture my thoughts and feelings.
Transformation: a revelation
Last week, I had one of the clearest revelations of the year on TRANSFORMATION. It started with singing a song about the holiness of God.
It happened in a staff meeting, and to be honest, I have no idea what the song was. I couldn’t sing it back to you if I wanted. I can’t even tell you the words…other than it is about God being holy.
I actually had 2 revelations in that staff meeting…
- I hate songs about God being holy.
I realized this while singing in the meeting. It started by unconsciously checking out.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this. Your mind wanders and all of a sudden you come to and think, “How long have I been checked out? How long have we been singing this song? Have I been singing this song?” Indeed I had been singing the song with my mouth, but my head and heart were far away.
In that moment of coming to, I began to reflect on the song, and more importantly my feelings.
It dawned on me why I had checked out…why I always check out. I don’t like to sing about God’s holiness, because it amplifies my unholiness.
Get ready…this is where TRANSFORMATION comes in…
The word holy literally means “set apart.” God is set apart from man, and I can do nothing to bridge that gap. Not only that, but I continually do things to widen the gap! On my own, I’m hopeless.
My problem and the problem of others like me is this is how we see ourselves. We are hopeless…never able to live to the standard required for holiness (whatever the standard we have set in our heads).
And that’s the problem – our heads don’t get it, and often our hearts are blind too. When it comes to holiness or set-apartness, God doesn’t see us. He doesn’t see me. He sees Jesus. We are hidden in Him.
This is TRANSFORMATION! Living with the understanding that our past, our present and our future is dead. God doesn’t see it. He doesn’t see us. He sees Jesus.
Bringing it all back around
This revelation is Freedom, but it also is a Risk. The risk is letting go.
As funny as it sounds, it’s hard to let go of our past to be free in Jesus. The past, as ugly as it may be, is what we know. The future, as bright as it may be, is unknown.
I want to let go, and move into God’s future for me…even if that means singing about His holiness.
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