MONDAYS WITH KERRI
I am sure it is no new news to you that we have an enemy who is hell bent on destroying us. He knows where to hit us. He knows our most sacred relationships will wound us most deeply.
Several years ago a significant relationship in my own life ended horrifically. My heart hurt so badly it was hard to breathe for several months. But as I continuously took my brokenness to the Lord, He began to reveal something to me that ultimately revolutionized my relationship with Him. “Your pain and heartache were allowed by me Kerri. They are gifts. You just can’t see that yet. You have been like a child sitting in a classroom talking to the other children around you. You haven’t been getting to know me; you haven’t been listening to me in prayer or meditating on my Word. And as a result, you don’t really know me. Yes, at times you see me and hear me, but you don’t really know me. You make much of my Spirit and you champion the resurrection of my Son, but you have yet to know my Father’s heart for you. I must break your heart for you to more fully receive mine, and when I do, it will change everything.”
I didn’t know Him? How could He say that? I had been teaching His word around the nation for years. I was the teacher, speaker, preacher, counselor, and the “go-to gal” for many ministry leaders, and here He was telling me I didn’t know Him. I was stunned; I was flabbergasted, I was angry, hot tears started pouring down my face. I was laid out in agony–talk about adding insult to injury! I was spiritually naked and I could feel shame lurking near. I had nowhere to hide and I had a choice before me. I would either hide in fear or trust Him and allow Him to use my pain to chisel out something beautiful. I chose Him. When I did, I claimed His promise that He would reveal Himself to my surrendered heart. “If you seek me, you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” So, I committed to seek Him with a motive I had never had before. I sought after Him with my whole heart so I could know Him more intimately. It was on this journey to brokenness that I truly came to know and believe that I am His Beloved.
He called me to consider His Majesty. Psalm 111:3 says, “Everything he does reveals His glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails.” As I meditated on this passage, I realized that He was right. I didn’t really know Him because if I did, my first response (or at least my second!) to my heartache would have been to ask Him to show how He was revealing His majesty to me. This verse says everything He does reveals His majesty. Well, I certainly wasn’t seeing it. Why? Then it struck me that the true manifestation of our freedom from lies, shame, and fear is in our ability to see Him in everything. This means when we lose the people dearest to us, when we find out someone we love is terminally ill, or when we lose our job, our first response is, “Lord, show me your majesty. You are King over all things and I need to see you now. Please show yourself to me, someway, somehow.” In a very real sense this is how we put the apple back on the tree. Eve took it, believing that God was holding out on her. We put it back when we refuse to believe that lie and, in the moment of temptation, we choose to look for His face instead. Brokenness begins when we stop operating out of a spirit of entitlement that tempts us to believe God owes us something. Instead, we learn to look for Him and how He will reveal Himself to us, in the middle of our darkest times.
He then asked me to consider His Glory and He took me to Jude 1:24-25 which says, “And now, all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling, and who will bring you into his glorious presence innocent of sin and with great joy. All glory to him, who alone is God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yes, glory, majesty, power, and authority belong to him, in the beginning, now, and forevermore. Amen.” Notice, in both of these passages majesty and glory are used in conjunction with each other. You cannot separate God’s majesty from His glory, for it is in His majesty that He displays His glory! God’s glory is mentioned four times in these two verses, which led me to prayerfully consider how I had been personally impacted by it. I thought of countless experiences in which I had enjoyed His glorious presence while meeting with other men and women. But I could not remember the last time I had actually been moved by His presence through intimacy in my relationship with Him alone. It was then I knew the second way He was calling me to know Him was in allowing Him to reveal His glory in my life. He is The One who is able to keep me from stumbling and then bring me into His presence free of sin and with great joy as a result of His glory. So, I started asking Him to show His glory to me.
His majesty leads us out of entitlement and into brokenness. His glory puts us on the pathway to know Him. It serves a constant reminder that He, not the things we think we want or need, is the blessing. His Glory is manifested in His presence, so when we see His Glory, we are fully blessed. Nothing else can matter in that place. Once we have tasted it, nothing else will ever satisfy us quite the same way again. Being in His glorious presence is the most intoxicating thing we can experience on earth. It is the ultimate pathway to brokenness because we realize just how great He is and just how small we are in the same moment.
When we commit to finding ourselves and our identity in The One who created us, our enemy will have one less stronghold to pull us down with. We are no longer “easy prey” for him. He will not be able to knock us out of the battle quite so easily when he can’t use our relationships with others to control our thoughts, beliefs and actions. However, it is critical we not only recognize the war in our relationships, we must see the potential gift in our heartaches as well. When relationships and people fail us, we are primed for spiritual growth. If we chose to cling to our identity as His Beloved, our deep wounds become the most fertile ground for our spiritual maturity. It is in our seasons of deep grief that our spiritual DNA is altered. We get to know the Great Physician and we allow Him to operate on our hearts. Ezekiel 36:26 says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Again, we get to choose. Our pain will either crush us and we will become desperate and hard. Or it will break our hearts, making us soft, pliable, and teachable, the perfect posture for a maturing saint.
//Questions//
I’m going to ask you the same questions God asked me those many years ago. Do you truly KNOW him?
Are you willing to choose to believe that God loves you even amidst your current pain and disappointment?
//Action Steps//
Seek Him with all your heart. Write down what you know to be true about His character, His will, His purposes for you and for His Kingdom.
Be still long enough to be moved by His presence. Allow Him to reveal His glory in your life right now. Seek an intimate relationship with your Creator, He is waiting for you to meet with Him.
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