Redefine me.

There are gifts within you.
There are talents and there are struggles.
There is beauty and there is ugliness.

I know, because they're in me too.

These contradictions that make up my whole being.

All of these pieces that somehow fit together to make me the person that I am.

I used to have this idea, in my head, that when I decided to truly give my life to Jesus, He would change me. I would be a totally different person. Someone I didn't know. Someone I wasn't. I would look more like all of the other Christians I saw. Maybe I would no longer be full of these contradictions. Maybe my passions would change. Everything would be different. I would be different. That's just how it goes.

But this idea that I had frustrated me. Haunted me. I was not a different person. I still struggled with the same things. I didn't fit into any cookie cutter image. And all of a sudden I felt like I didn't know who I was.

But I've begun to change my prayer...

God isn't sitting around trying to make everybody look the same. I believe, He's actually doing quite the opposite. God's not trying to make me anyone other than who I am. But I do believe, and I've begun to pray, that he will redefine me.


Redefine...
         To define something differently.

God is in the business of redefining.

He takes what's there and redefines it, using it for His glory.

I will always be Amber. I will always have these passions. I will always have these struggles. But I am asking God to redefine them. Show me how to use all of these things for His glory.

Redefine my passions.
Redefine my talents.
Redefine even my weaknesses.

Because so often my greatest weakness, by God's grace, can turn into my greatest strength.

...if only I let Him redefine it...

If it were up to me, apart from God, I would probably be investing myself, passions, and gifts into very different things, and I would be unhealthily feeding my struggles and weaknesses.

When I allow God to step in, that doesn't all go away, but what it looks like is very different.

I was painting the other day and thinking through this idea of redefining...
And I realized my paints tell the whole story...

I have a color.
Red.

I use it for a certain purpose. For certain details. For a certain feel.

But then another color comes along.
Blue.

They mix.


And all of a sudden a new color is formed.
Purple.

But I never got rid of the red. Really, the red is still there. It just looks different.


And now purple, I use for something totally different then the red alone. But the red is there. Still a base for the purple itself. It's just being used in a different way.

Red could never be purple by itself.




I imagine what it looks like for my passions, talents, and struggles to mix with God and His heart.
What colors would it create?
Where would it be used?


Redefine me.

I look down at my pallet.
Colors. All sorts.
You can see the process of the mixing.
The process of new colors being made.
Colors being redefined.

There's darks and lights and everything in between.
It's messy.
And yet the product is beautiful.

It's a process of transformation. A process of taking what's there, using it as a base, and making something new. A process of redefining.

Trust in the messy process of redefining. Let God use you, in your entirety, with all that you have for His purposes and His glory. Don't give into the lie that you have to be someone else. You simply have to be redefined. Let this be your prayer.

Redefine me.