The Beauty of His Story: Hope & Despair

If you're perfect, raise your hand.

I'd be willing to bet that none of you are raising your hands right now.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that most of you are listing all the things that keep you from being perfect. There's a voice in your head reminding you of every mistake, every failure, every wrong turn. It's a voice you hear quite often, maybe even every day. Let me assure you: you aren't the only one this voice speaks to.

Despair

As I've stated a number of times already in this series, we have an adversary: Satan. He lives and works in total opposition to God. Where God creates, Satan destroys. Where God brings light, Satan seeks to bring darkness. When God brings us back to life, Satan tries to keep us from being fully alive.

Through a constant whispering in our ears, Satan uses his voice to remind us of who we used to be. The voice speaks through many channels--society, the people of influence in our lives (family, friends, teachers, etc), our own hearts--but the message is always the same: You haven't changed. You're still the same person. Look what you just did! How can you be a Christian and still be doing that?

Quickly the joy of being made alive again begins to drown in despair as we realize our own weakness and imperfection. The Bible calls us to perfection and holiness because of God's perfection and holiness. Satan delights in showing us just how far we are from achieving it. He points out sin after sin, heaping up shame and cackling with delight as we collapse under the weight of it. Despair begins to rule and we cry out with Paul, "Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?" (Romans 7:24, NLT)

Hope

Fortunately that question has an answer. His name is Jesus. And He is our hope.

Jesus died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did what we couldn't do. And it worked. The cross = mission accomplished! If you have placed your faith in Jesus, you stand forgiven in this moment, no matter what you did last night or this morning or five minutes ago. You ARE forgiven. You were forgiven in the moment you first asked Jesus to save you from sin. And each time you have sinned since then, all you've had to do was go back to Him so He could remind you that you are forgiven. And that holds true for every time you will sin in the future.

We don't have to despair because we have Jesus.

But we also have the Holy Spirit.

God gives the Holy Spirit to every believer (Ephesians 1:13) and the Holy Spirit gives us victory in the battle against sin: You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world (1 John 4:4, NLT). The battle will be long and hard and you will often feel exhausted, but you already have the victory! There is HOPE: I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life (1 John 5:13, NLT). And with that hope, that assured confidence in your status before God, you can overcome the despair.

What does that look like practically?

It looks like remembering the Gospel every day: because Jesus died, you are forgiven.

It looks like confessing your sin: bring it into the light so the Spirit can help you deal with it.

It looks like choosing to believe the truth: though you feel broken and dirty, God sees you as clean and whole.

There will be a new heaven and a new earth where we no longer have to fight sin, but in the meantime, you are already new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Choose to live in the truth of that, to be the new person God created you to be. And when you sin, don't despair. You are already forgiven. Let that build in you a hope that leads to victory over your sin.

Two Thousand Combinations: The Truth About My Closet

How many times have I stared into my closet or my dresser drawers feeling like I've got nothing to wear? How many times have I been late leaving the house because I've been agonizing over an outfit? How often do I scroll through Pinterest wishing I had the money to buy the clothes I see?

It's a never-ending cycle: wanting to look cute, feeling the "need" for more clothes.

And it's all based on a lie.

266

That's the number of clothing items in my possession. I counted. I counted everything. I have enough tops and pants to create nearly 2000 different outfits. That's about 5.5 years' worth of outfits.

Meanwhile there are kids in Ecuador with one set of clothing to their names.

This represents about 1/2 of my wardrobe.

How did I get to this point? By convincing myself I needed it.

"It fits. It's pretty cute. And it's on sale for $12. Why not?"

The sad thing is... whatever "it" is usually gets worn once and then never again.

So why all this sudden interest in my closet? I mean, I don't normally spend a Friday night counting every clothing item I own. The answer: Clothing Month of 7 (if you don't know what 7 is, check out last month's blog).

For this month's challenge, Jen chose 7 items of clothing and wore only those for the entire month. I opted to do the same. For four weeks, I had the following clothing options: dark skinny jeans, "comfy" pants, my End It t-shirt, 2 solid color shirts, my blue cardigan, and my TOMS shoes. While Jen opted not to wear accessories, I allowed myself a few options, mostly because I don't wear them and I wanted this month to be about learning how to use what I have.

Overall, this was an easy month. I work from home, so I pretty much wore the comfy pants & End It t-shirt every day (apologies to my roommates). If I was leaving the house, on went the skinny jeans and one of the other shirts. It made getting dressed super easy.

It especially made getting ready for church easy. At one point, Jen talks about speaking at a women's event in Atlanta during clothes month. She points out the general tendency for female Atlantans to look put together and cute when they're seen in public. I have found this to be true since moving here a year ago. And this has fueled my desire to look just as put together and cute whenever I go somewhere. Sunday mornings can be an ordeal as I struggle to make sure my outfit looks just right. Removing the pressure this month was wonderful.

And I realized that I need to stop spending so much time worrying about what other people think about what I'm wearing. Most likely, they aren't even noticing. And besides, shouldn't I be more worried about them noticing my heart and my character?

As a single woman I have a tendency to leave the house with this thought in the back of my mind: "I could meet my husband today." While that is true, it should never be the motivating factor in what I choose to wear. It's ok to want to look cute. But I should spend far more of my time, energy, and resources on developing my relationship with God. After all, I'd prefer my husband be more attracted to me as a person that what I'm wearing.

So the result of this month was an attitude adjustment when it comes to clothes. I cleaned out my closet and will be throwing away or donating more than half of the items I had. That huge number is mostly thanks to the fact that most of my clothes don't fit me anymore. [Word of advice: when you stop having 5-10 hours of dance rehearsal a week, your metabolism will slow down.] There are things I will need to replace, but I'm going to choose to be wise about my purchases: look for sales, shop at thrift stores, only buy things I'll need and will wear more than once.

The truth is, I have plenty of clothes (even now with half of my closet), and I need to be grateful for that blessing. Next time you hear me say, "I have nothing to wear," you have my permission to smack me... or gently remind me that this is a lie.