I can think of many times when something was ruined for me.
You eat one bag of White Cheddar Cheese Its that are actually in fact, not White Cheddar Cheese Its, but are white, MOLDED regular Cheese Its. Or when you go to what you think is a super cool pet store and it’s actually a cover up for an undercover drug operation. Or you get attacked by one murder of crows and you decide that all birds are your enemy.
Or when you build up an entire year of anticipation only to spend your finale Month 11 in North Africa and then you find that it’s totally overwhelming, harsh and debatably your least favorite place in this entire world.
And it’s a one and done. No more Cheese Its. No more birds. No more random pet stores. No more North Africa. EVER.
But then, sometimes, maybe a week or two later, a month later, years later, or let’s get real, maybe exactly 8 months later, something happens.
Your niece offers you a real-life White Cheddar Cheese It out of her adorable little fingers, and you give it another chance and wait a second, you remember that Cheese Its are freaking great. Or your cat tries to kill the sweetest little baby finch that you’ve ever seen and you think, why don’t I like birds again? Or you’re living your life in America and God calls you to go back to none other than freaking NORTH AFRICA and it rocks your world with how amazing, vibrant and welcoming it is. (And with the pet store thing, yeah I’m not sure… I haven’t been back to a random pet store since, honestly.)
These are obviously somewhat silly, super specific, personal examples, but I realized that it’s in moments like this when I had most identified with the idea of redemption. Taking something ‘ruined’ and restoring it back to the purity of what I thought it was before.
I tend to think of redemption like this in my own life, too. Coming into this season on the Race, I had many people speak over me a season of redemption – and this idea of replacing bad in my past with good in my present is what I thought of.
And while this isn’t totally wrong, it’s pretty incomplete when applied to our relationship with God.
Paul says this:
“For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Colossians 1:9-14
What does it mean to transfer us from the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son He loves? The Father’s redemption of our hearts and souls is not solely about taking things that were difficult in our then and making them something beautiful in our now, to take our struggles and turn them into our successes, our misery into our ministry (although those things often do happen as a byproduct).
Yes, He desires us to dwell in the kingdom of light, to be whole, to be His. And we know that the Father promises to redeem us by working all things together for our good as believers (Romans 8:28).
But we are missing it if we are focused only on how God wants to redeem something that we feel went wrong and make it right. We miss it when we focus on Him fixing our external struggle and not our internal heart posture. We miss it when we think of redemption as an event and not as a Person — Jesus the Redeemer.
I’ve been learning this: Redemption is less about compensating a hard time or bad experience and turning into my definition of good and more about Jesus’s continual pursuit of the parts of my heart where there’s brokenness that I operate out of and claiming them as His own.
And because of that, Him calling forth a season redemption is not a promise for a feel-good season or absence of struggle. Because here’s the truth: facing struggles, getting pruned, acknowledging painful hurts, navigating the wilderness, getting close enough to the Father to see who you really are – that IS part of redemption. Redemption is not about being in a perfect, easy situation that was once difficult, but being imperfect and obedient in your messy season, allowing God to specifically heal parts of you and bring those into the Light.
Specifically for me, this season isn’t about God restoring experiences or opportunities that I felt like I lost on my last Race. It’s not about Him giving me a good experience in North Africa to cover my last hard experience here. It’s not about Him giving me a do over, or a second chance. This season is about me getting to know Jesus as my Redeemer and how getting to know Him brings my heart into the brilliance and truth of His word.
“Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.”
Psalms 119:105
Redemption is a promise of TRANSFERANCE of your HEART – into deeper revelation of the Father’s kingdom, of His love, of His forgiveness, of His safety, of His promises. And this leads you from your ways that you functioned in the dark – from sin, fear, from pain, from instability and insecurity – and into the ways which you now function in His light – in strength, in confidence, in obedience, in peace.
By this transference and Him claiming those pieces of my heart that don’t recognize His love, THAT is Jesus showing me His work of redemption. THAT is Jesus leading me into the inheritance that is mine, into seeing my situations in a new light because of how His heart in me changes my perspective of those struggles into avenues to display His truth.
This redemption starts from the inside and overflows into the physical. Often, it’s God changing our perspective more than the changing of our circumstance that instills His power over our situations and reshapes how we think, speak and act.
Whether my whole path is illuminated by the light or just my next step by the lamp, whether the next few months are full of fruitfulness or waiting, whether my brain says, wow, this is perfect! or that’s so not the way I wanted to learn that lesson, I can believe the promise that Jesus is my constant Redeemer. And this season of redemption may look like blindly eating a thousand more molded white Cheese It’s or it may look like the reconstruction of my heartbroken ruins into sanctuaries of praise. The how, why and when of redemption is up to Jesus.
What’s up to me is to believe, to trust, and to keep coming back for more.
“Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.”
Isaiah 44:22
