Reflection of a Saint

I feel very... humbled.

Sometimes it takes a shock for me to truly see my own reflection clearly, and today I got one.

This Canada Day has been a very strange day for me. I can almost guarantee that the situation which kickstarted my day will sounds quite silly to you.

I woke up this morning at 6:00am, and decided I wanted five more minutes of sleep. I woke up again at 7:09 to my sister, phone in hand. I was supposed to start work at 7:00.

When I arrived at work, I felt AWFUL. Ashamed of myself, and kicking myself over and over for thinking that I'd wake up to another alarm 5 minutes later, when I knew I had been having trouble waking up to alarms recently.

Each person who didn't make eye contact with me or didn't talk to me was noticed by me. Surely they were doing it on purpose.

I was sent to the back, to work the back booth in drive-thru. At first I was relieved to not be around people, but soon I felt very alone with my shame. I wanted to be with people who would just work, and remind me that I was thinking too much, and that no one else was thinking about it two hours later.

As I replayed the morning in my head, I suddenly realized that I felt so awful because for the first time in a while, I was stationed in front of a mirror which showed clearly my fallibility. I am FAR from perfect, and I felt that really strongly today.

I hated the fact that my perfect attendance record had been broken, that my reputation was damaged. My sister left for a month-long trip this morning, and what I had been calling loneliness suddenly was shown to be jealousy.

I came home to an almost empty house, my sister wanted help with her little children, and I looked for an excuse not to help. I hate writing this, because I do LOVE my nieces, and I love my sister and her husband, and I want in my heart of hearts so badly to be a servant, but I wanted to be lazy. This just added to my growing list of obvious imperfections, so I did what I could to remedy that, by taking  charge of my actions since my feelings were stubborn. I helped with the kids, and I am glad I did it. I was right to do it.

Yet still I feel a hole in me, like I was created with potential, and I have been living in willful ignorance of it.

While I was at work I cried out to God, and wished so hard that SOMEONE had brought a bible. No one had, so I prayed, thanking God that I have access by faith, not just through the written Word. But when I got home, what did I do? I surely didn't read my bible.

But still... God definitely loves me. After about 2:00, aside from moments that added to my list, my spirits were lifted over and over by little things people said and did to me. Not only at work, but my sister and brother in-law put on a BBQ for us, and friends came over to help, and more happened that I can't even remember right now. I feel like God blesses me the most when I can most clearly see that I don't deserve it, perhaps to teach me about grace.

Just before we ate supper, my two-year old niece said, "Tante Tuey (tante means aunt, my nickname is Tuey) is a very odd saint."

It brought to mind the many places in scripture where followers of God are called saints. Not so much the halo-adorned type of saint, but biblically, she is right. I am a very odd saint.

I have a lot of problems, today more obviously than most, but I am a saint.

“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
‭‭(Ephesians‬ ‭2:19-22‬)

Now I don't mean to make it out that you can live in sin and it doesn't matter because you are a saint. Being a saint is about being in relationship, and "being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit," who is holy and without sin. Sometimes the purification process is very uncomfortable, (like today!) and that, I find, is when God chooses to comfort you by reminding you that you ARE a saint. You may not be a fully developed, perfectly sanctified saint, but God doesn't expect you to be perfectly sanctified before He has sanctified you.

Flesh and Blood

“For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.” And again: “I will put My trust in Him.” And again: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.” Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Hebrews‬ ‭2:11-15)

Oftentimes my thoughts are very scattered, so please forgive me if I don't make sense. If nothing from this point on makes sense, at least you will have read some scripture, which is always worth something.

I read Hebrews 2 today, and thought of this.

God is ultimately in charge. If you want to think about it visually like a ladder, God is at the top. He created man, who is flesh and blood, so they are one step down. Because of God they have flesh and blood, just the simple fact that they have flesh and blood shows that they were created of God.

They have children, who are a step down on the ladder from them. The children also have flesh and blood because of their parents, the simple fact that they have flesh and blood shows that they were born of their parents.

For God to put on flesh and blood is an act of amazing humility in itself, because in doing so, He is putting himself on the ladder under His own creation.

Not only this, but think about death.

God is not afraid of death, and death cannot harm Him. There's literally nothing it can do to Him, He would never have a REASON to fear death.

But His children became slaves to the fear of it. His creation was terrified of it.

Not only did He humble himself to the level of a child of His creation, but He allowed Himself to be conquered by the thing that never would have touched Him because He is more powerful than it.

He allowed what His children feared so much to overpower Him, so that it would never have to overpower them.

Obviously, even as a child of flesh and blood, and a victim of death, He still claimed the victory, and still plundered the defeated enemy for his spoils.

Satan's spoils. God's captive children, which He raised up from the ashes of their destroyed kingdom and set on thrones as His heirs.

The Things We Do

I came to a lovely realization a while ago. Actually...I'm not sure if I thought it was lovely at the time, but now that I have thought about it more, I love it.

This is it in a nutshell, What we do does not define who we are.

I have known this to be true for a long time. Having struggled with self worth I realized a long time ago that what I do does not make me who I am, but Who I believe in.

My identity is in Christ, He says I am righteous and so I am, because what the world sees in me is fault, but God sees who He has made me to be, which is faultless.

This has been enormously helpful for me, and still will continue to be I am sure, but there is another side of it that I had not thought about until recently.

I love it because it builds me up, it shows me that I am more than I think I am sometimes. But now I love it too because when it needs to it breaks me down, it makes me humble.

If the bad things that I do do not make me bad, then surely the good things I do will not make me good.

I made some notes after first thinking about the second side of this, and here is some of what I wrote.

"We lay uncovered before God and He sees our hearts, and He sees who believes. He does not count us "good" or "bad" based on our actions, but based on who we put our trust in.

The world likes to label everyone based on what they do. If you paint pictures for a living, they call you "An artist." If you rule a kingdom, they call you a "king" or a "queen," if you do a lot of good things, they call you a "good person," but this is all external stuff."

If I can as easily say, "I am nothing because I have done wrong," as I can say, "I am better than other people because I have done right," then isn't judging based on what I do or achieve a flawed judgment?

Again, it points me back to Christ.

The only way I can be good is through Christ, I am shown this by both ways of thinking, whether it is that Christ defines who I am or...I guess they both are that Christ defines who I am. And that is it, plain and simple.

For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)