Message #3 from India: This was actually my first message I gave in India. I was nervous and had never preached before or used a translator to do so. I didn’t really think I had anything worth saying that somebody else couldn’t say better. As it turns out, I had quite a bit to say and this message ended up being about an hour long. This was a vulnerable message to give to strangers in a village in India, but it also feels super vulnerable typing it out for you all to read as it is predominately made up of my testimony.
Thanks for giving it a read!
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I grew up going to church on Christmas and Easter mainly and then I would attend Vacation Bible School for a week each summer while my grandma cooked our daily snack down in the kitchen of her Baptist church. When I would sit in the red faux-velvet pews in the old little church in Locust Grove, Virginia, I heard about a God that seemed too big for me to relate to and about a man named Jesus who did a lot of really good things when he walked on earth, but didn’t understand how his horrible death on a cross had anything to do with me.
As I progressed through middle school and high school I got involved in some christian groups activities like YoungLife and FCA, but if I’m being honest my attendance to these events probably benefited the extracurricular section on my college application more than it did my faith.
You see, I grew up striving for achievement. I desired to be the best at whatever I put my mind to. Sports, school, extracurriculars and even relationships. I desired perfection and I desired to make the people around me, especially my parents, proud. So I got involved in anything and everything I felt like I would be successful in and that would make me look good.
My final year of high school, I was stretched too thin and lacked fulfillment even though my schedule was filled to the brim with activities and accomplishments society says we should take pride and find joy in: varsity sports, homecoming queen, straight A’s, tons of extracurriculars, a great friend group and a stable home life with my family.
But instead of finding myself joyful, I found myself exhausted and worn out from trying to keep it all together. I got tired of trying so hard in general and started to look to the things of this world as a way to escape and to provide relief.
This season of my life coincided with an invitation from my athletic trainer to attend church with her. She may not have known I needed an invitation as badly as I did, but I know God sure did. It was at church that weekend that God softened my heart and I started to see how Jesus’ life had an impact on mine and the belief that a relationship with God could be personal and intimate started to emerge.
I continued on to college, where I got plugged into a campus ministry and I actually gave my life to Christ at a fall retreat weekend my freshman year through this ministry. The only way I can describe the feeling of handing over my life into the hands of the one who created me is that it felt like the biggest burden I could ever carry had been lifted. I felt lighter, more free, breathing felt easier and I felt at peace.
I wish I could tell you it was all rainbows and butterflies ever since that day, but it wasn’t. I struggled a lot. I fell into the temptations of partying, drinking, impurity, and just straight up disobediance. I was constantly in a tension within my heart. I had this desire to follow the more righteous path but found myself too weak to get up and walk on it. (Shoutout to Paul in Romans 7:18 for hitting the nail on the head for what I’d struggle with).
Even though I was still committed to get into a Godly community through my campus ministry, I never felt like I belonged. Everyone seemed so put together. They seemed healed, redeemed, and without struggles, at least not the ones I was facing. It felt like no one ever talked about the brokenness they were still experiencing, so I perceived that as they had no brokenness at all and that I was alone in the tension I was feeling. This also made me feel like I couldn’t share about what was going on out of fear of being judged, or being told I wasn’t doing this whole “christian thing” right. I questioned whether it was wrong to call yourself a christian yet still struggle with sin, temptations, doubts and fears.
This made me pull away from that community but I still didn’t give up on God. I did my best to move forward in my faith, but I struggled without having the accountability and discipleship that is found within a healthy christian community. So I kept facing the tensions I was struggling with. I had the desire to obey God but I was striving for it out of knowing what I “should” be doing out of what is right and wrong, and not out of the love I had for Jesus. I also wasn’t letting the Holy Spirit guide me in the path of righteousness. I was trying out of my flesh to be sanctified. My man Paul also talks about this in Galatians 3:2-3. I wasn’t letting God’s love and grace transform me. I was trying to transform myself and I was failing.
After realizing this and entering into a healthier christian community in physical therapy school, I finally felt like I could reveal my brokeness, my struggles, and the tension I had been feeling for years. This community encouraged me and supported me through it without imparting judgement or disgust. It was safe and I felt loved.
Eventually, my desires started shifting. I ended up leading a small group within this community, helped to plant a church and I was letting go of the things of this world. I could feel God healing me and transforming me into something I felt like I was always meant to be, which is a vessel for his love and grace to shine clearly through. I felt like I had purpose again and a way to actually find fulfillment.
The verse that I feel like wraps up these parts of my testimony into a sweet little package is 2 Corinthians 4:7: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
To explain, I want to take you through the same activity I did in India.
Imagine in your mind a jar of clay, like the verse above mentions.
Think about what it looks like. It’s size, it’s color, it’s purpose.
Now, imagine yourself as the jar of clay.
Take a minute to think about how that jar could better represent you.
Would it change colors, different designs, or different shape?
Now, imagine the ways you have sinned in your life. Think of all the things you have done, said or thought that falls short of what God wants for us.
Imagine with each sin you are thinking of that a piece of your jar chips away and falls to the floor.
Some may be big, and some small, some pieces may fall over and over again, representing repeated mistakes.
Now start trying to put the pieces back on your jar. If your past is similar to mine, maybe the pieces don’t quite fit like they used to, or maybe they’re too shattered to even know where to start.
As you try your best to pick up all the pieces and put them back together, you notice it changes what the jar looks like because now it’s cracked and chipped.
Maybe now it can’t carry out it’s purpose any more. If you poured water into it it would seep out of the cracks.
You try your best but your best still isn’t good enough.
You become exhausted from trying to keep the pieces together and you’re frustrated.
At once, all your pieces crumble to the floor and you’re left with a pile of shattered clay.
It’s now unrecognizable as the jar it once was.
This is where I found myself when trying to manage the tension between the desires of my flesh and the path of righteousness God was calling me to. I tried and tried and tried to do this “christian thing” right but pieces kept falling off now matter how hard I tried to keep them from doing so. But then I found that healthy christian community, who helped me surrender my brokenness to the Lord and everything changed…
Again, imagine your pile of crumbled clay pieces.
Imagine God looking at those pieces with you. He still loves you whether you’re a perfect clay jar completely unblemished or a mound of chipped and broken shards of clay. But He also loves you enough not to leave you broken. He wishes to restore you to himself, redeemed and made whole.
Imagine God’s spirit sweeping in like a gust of wind, picking up your pieces like in a tornado, swirling them around.
You start seeing the pieces come together.
They start resembling a jar again.
But it’s an altered version of the original jar you first imagined.
The pieces now in the shape of the jar, are sealed with glass so that you can see between each piece into the jar. A mosaic version of the clay jar with glass holding the pieces together.
Next, you see the Holy Spirit fill the jar with a magnificent ball of glowing light.
It fills the jar completely, leaving no space unfilled with its glorious light.
The light shines though the jar, between the once broken pieces revealing God’s power, goodness, and light.
This is where I now find myself. I am willing to expose my brokenness for all to see so that God’s light shines through me. It’s obvious that I haven’t led a perfect life, but it’s also obvious that I’ve now been made perfect by God.
Think about it, if the jar was never broken, the light would now not be revealed. His power is truly demonstrated perfect in our weakness.
I am also able to live out my original purpose, of being a vessel for Him, created by Him, for His glory. The more I’ve walked in this purpose, the more I’m able to walk in the freedom and life God intended for me.
I’d like to describe to you 5 different stages of this jar story and I want you to consider in which stage you find yourself.
Stage 1: Original jar of clay
You believe you have made no mistakes that require pieces of you to fall off. You are deceived into thinking you are without sin, and therefore without need of a savior. I encourage you to read Romans 3:23 and reconsider this. It’s not shameful to admit you have sinned and fallen short of what God intended, it’s the reality of our human condition ever since the garden of Eden and it’s out of love and grace that God asks us to draw near to him out of repentance for our sins.
Stage 2: Chipping
You’re in the tension. You’ve admitted you’ve fallen short, and you need a savior, but you still can’t help but to fall into temptations. I encourage you to read Romans 6:11-12 and don’t let the enemy keep his strongholds within your heart. Let sin reign no more.
Stage 3: Striving
You’ve admitted you’re broken and you want to walk righteously but you are working out of your own strength to be made whole again instead of letting the love of God be at work within you. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, it reveals how God has the power and desire to sanctify you himself, you need only to be still and stop striving for wholeness.
Stage 4: Broken
You’ve hit your breaking point in trying to hold it all together. You’re tired and exhausted and part of you wants to give up on your faith if it leaves you feeling this way. Rest in 2 Corinthians 12:9 knowing that His power is made perfect in your weakness.
Stage 5: Redeemed
You’ve accepted your brokeness, surrendered it all to the Father, and you’re living out your purpose each day, bringing God glory in everything you do. I want to encourage you with Philippians 3:12-14 to never stop pursuing all that God has for you, because it’s so much more than we could ever think or imagine.
No matter which stage you find yourself in, and no matter how broken you may feel, there is hope for you in the name of Jesus and his love for you knows no bounds and has no conditions. I’m so grateful to have learned this truth when I did to allow me to say “yes” to this crazy yet wonderful World Race journey that I’m on! God is good and so so faithful.
