Excerpt:
How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?” (Ps. 4:2). These blows aren’t random or incidental. They strike directly at some part of the heart, turn the very thing God created to be a source of celebration into a source of shame. And so you can at least begin to discover your glory by looking more closely at what you were shamed for. Look at what’s been assaulted, used, abused.
As Bernard of Clairvaux said, “Through the heart’s wound, I see its secret.” Let me put it this way: What has life taught you about your God-given glory? What have you believed about your heart over the years? “That it’s not worth anyone’s time,” said a woman. Her parents were too busy to really want to know her. “That it’s weak,” confided a friend. He suffered several emasculating blows as a boy, and his father simply shamed him for it. “That I shouldn’t trust it to anyone.” “That it’s selfish and self-centered.” “That it’s bad.” And you . . . what have you believed? Those accusations you heard growing up, those core convictions that formed about your heart, will remain down there until someone comes to dislodge them, run them out of Dodge.
(Waking the Dead, 118)
My pastor once preached a message title, "Turning you mess into a message." Months later I am finding myself thinking on this parituclar subject. I was at a conference last week and the minister spoke on "The manifestation of the sons of God." However she spoke on that verse in Romans 8 from a different perspective. Allow me to share just a few words from the message with you, please know that these were what I got from the message, not necessarily what she said verbatim. "Look at the area where you've been attacked the most in your life, that's where your destiny/glory is." You may say well what does that mean? Let me paint a picture for your mind. Imagine a young girl, all her life all she's ever dreamt of doing with her life is to sing. She would sing in the garage when she gets back home from school. In her mind she wasn't just singing in her mother's plain garage, she was singing before thousands of people. As she grows older, her parents and others around her try to discourage her from pursuing her dream of singing. By the time she's in college, singing is not something she really sees as her glory but rather something she does on the side. Boyfriends, and so-called friends ridicule this gift and say, "if you really want to sing you should do this and do that." They mock her voice and never really validate or support her dream, her glory.
It is my hope that as you read this today, that if you've been in that girl's shoes, you don't let anybody tell you you're not all that. It is only because the enemy knows the treasure that is on the inside of you that he uses those to whom you look for validation to discourage you. Discouragement means to loose heart. Once you lose heart you lose passion and when passion and zeal are lost there's nothing else to live for. So get up and manifest as the glorious child of God that you were made to be.
