Who would have thought you could learn a lesson in a rock of all things A ROCK?!?! But the Lord works in mysterious ways am I right! During our team time we were asked to spend some solo time asking the Lord what we find our identity in. I sat down ready to focus in on what the Lord wanted to reveal to me in this time but became distracted. Instantly I felt ashamed for becoming so easily distracted as my team was being intentional with the Lord but we have been learning a lot about speaking grace and life over ourselves. If you grow distracted in times of silence, the Lord knows your mind wanders. So I encourage you to pray that if your mind wanders that Christ will use that to bring you to him rather than to pray away distractions. After speaking life into myself and allowing myself the grace in letting my mind wander I waited for God to speak into me. As I opened up my eyes the rocks instantly caught my eye. The rocks in the sun were glistening in the light with speckles of glitter scattered across. One in particular was shining so brightly and next to it was was plain. I thought what a shame it was that there was a plain rock surrounded by all these beautifully sparkling rocks. I picked the two rocks up to examine them closer and realized the plain rock had the biggest sparkle piece on it. I sat there for a while wondering if there was a way just to get the sparkle out. Then the Lord used this distraction to speak to me and my identity as I asked Him to. I was so busy comparing the one rock to all the ones glistening in the sun I almost did not take the time to look at the beauty on the other side. I appreciated the beauty on the rock but did not appreciate it in it’s fullness. If God takes time to work out the intricate details of every single rock making them uniquely beautiful surly he does that for every person. While I am focusing on the roughness of a rock like I do about my imperfections Christ sees us in our fullness and chooses to love us anyways. And when I tried to chip away the roughness of the rock it reminded me of how God did not die for the perfect girl who goes to church and prays, He died for the girl who made mistakes and is filled with guilt and shame. For too long I have been comparing myself to others instead of being exactly who God called me to be. When you only focusing on others achievements you can grow envious but when you look at your own as well as others we can celebrate how we are reflecting God. If God used rocks to help me refocus my attention he is definitely using you.
