This Sunday I was challenged to think of things I have been holding on to that I could be giving to Christ. When I first hear this, I think of materialistic things like giving up time on my phone and spending more time with Jesus, cleaning out my house and donating all the things I don’t need, or giving money to people who need it more than me. Yea, those things are all great to give away and definitely things I need to and should do, but I recently heard a statement that completely changed my perspective on this challenge.
You may know that I work at Old Navy, and I get a lot interesting customers, but a couple of days ago I had the most precious lady come into the store looking for items for the homeless. She came up to the register and had bags and bags of hats, gloves, and scarves that she puts with other items in a kit to donate. We have a lot of homeless organizations in Nashville, one of which Green Hill works with where we provide clothes, food, and a warn night at the church through Room At The End. I asked her which organization she was working with, and she told me that she completely does this on her own. One year she looked at all the money she was saving for Christmas and thought, “Why am I saving up all this money when I could be giving it away?” Herself, her daughter, and a few volunteers go into town and just start passing out the kits. The first year she started doing this she thought she would only have enough money to provide for 20 people, but she prayed that she could provide for more and sure enough, more people started asking for help and more people started asking how they could help. She went on to tell me more and more ways the Lord has been so faithful and miraculous and it was a beautiful picture of how God works in big ways through ordinary people.
Now, back to why I’m writing this blog post. “Why am I saving up all this money when I could be giving it away?” Woah, cool, a thought so simple but so incredibly bold. I couldn’t get this off of my mind, and I just kept asking Jesus, “What can I give You? Money? Time? Things? What is it? I want to give You something!” And He kept telling me “No no no, Theresa Ann. I don’t want those things. I want your insecurities.” Obviously my first thought is yea, duhh, of course you can have those, I don’t want them, get rid of them. I thought it was just that easy, but then I went about my week and ya know, life happened. I would get dressed in the morning and change outfits several times because I am insecure with my body. I haven’t been wearing makeup lately because it was making my acne worse, and I would stare into the car mirror, having to convince myself that it was okay to go inside. I constantly stress over my World Race squad, hoping that they like me and don’t think that I’m annoying. Insecurities and insecurities kept piling up. Then the Lord reminded me, “Why are you saving up all of these insecurities when you could be giving them to Me? Why do you find comfort in stressing over your insecurities? You know you have ultimate comfort, freedom, and peace in My Presence. You know I think you’re beautiful. You know it doesn’t matter what the world thinks of you. You know I love you.” He kept giving me truth after truth, and more love and more peace and more freedom flowed into my life.
I still have insecurities that will take time to work through, but I’m not bound by them anymore. I get to choose whether I let those insecurities rule my life, or if I let the redeeming love of Christ give me joy. I hope to choose Jesus day after day. I hope you would do the same with me, and I would like to challenge you to give anything that you’re saving up to Jesus. Whether that be insecurities, anger, worry, guilt, labels, brokenness, etc. This season of giving, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who gave His life for you so that you don’t have to live a life bound by sin, is the perfect time to do so.
Thanks you so much for reading, I know it was sort of a long one. Feel free to comment down below, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts and feelings on the post! (If you’re not already subscribed to my blog, you should do so! You’ll get an update whenever I post, so you’ll be one of the firsts to read it!)
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!
