July #jammed: Grace serves.

Day 210: Take care of what’s underneath.

“During that period, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what seemed right to them.” Judges 21:25

“Mom,” my youngest daughter informed, “I’m going to play with all of my make-up today.”

Her Saturday plans were spread out all over her bedroom floor. Every free sample and clearance kit I had ever passed to her was cracked open and ready.

“Let’s make a space for that today so you don’t have to sit on the floor,” I suggested.

I gave up telling her ‘no’ and instead taught her how to blend so she didn’t look so scary when she caked eyeshadow and blush on in a rainbow of colors. She’s not allowed to wear it out of the house, and knows she doesn’t need it to be pretty. But, she likes to play with it.

Today’s verse comes from Judges, a time when God’s people had very little restraint and sporadic leadership. “Everyone did what seemed right to them.” Pictures pre-schoolers running around the playground with a full face of make up on. That would be ridiculous, right? There has to be some limit …for them at this time, there wasn’t. And it got them into a lot of trouble …over and over again. The Promised Land was being wrecked.

There’s a lot of pressure for Christians to remain relevant. It’s important to be able to relate to the next generation and our job to reach them for Christ. To help hurting people, we have to be where they are at.

Relevancy often lies in the stories we are too scared to share. Human pain and suffering is something Christians are not immune to. Many of us can look back on a time when our lives looked like something out of the book of Judges. No rules and whatever we wanted.

Let’s remember not to extract our ‘relevant’ stories in our efforts to reach others with the love of Jesus. Our passion for our Savior’s love runs as deep because of what we’ve been through. Remaining relevant is remembering where we were before He pulled us up.

Father, Praise You for who we are. Thank You for the struggles that each of us wear in this life. We confess forgetting and shoving them down into our past …and pray that You inspire us to pull our truth out to cross bridges …to get to hurting people …and love them for You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace! 

#greatgrace17

Happy Friend-ing

Megs

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