“Every difficult relationship is ordained by God to expose our need for Christ. We must be more broken about our sin than frustrated by others.” Dr. Bob Flayhart, pastor Oak Mountain Presbyterian
About a month ago I prayed that the Lord would expose more of my sin to me. I know that is a prayer that will result in some uneasy times, but I was tired of coasting through some of my life this year acknowledging general sin, but not specific sin. A situation arose a few weeks ago at work with a coworker that frustrated me greatly, and while it frustrated me pretty much the entire week, it also revealed my pride and critical self. So then I had two things weighing on me: My great frustration with my coworker that was impossible to ignore and would render a huge defensive attack if mentioned, and seeing my nasty ugly sin in the whole situation. What an answer to prayer!!! =)
Hey…. I got what I asked for didn’t I?
That week the situation came to a confrontation of sorts on no less than Sunday morning. I was already broken, praying and working on my heart and attitude from the whole week. After confronting her after she snapped at me, I knew I needed to get out of the environment, after doing what I could to “stay at peace”. The whole drive home and to church I listened to Laura Story, and repeated “Make Something Beautiful” and “There is Nothing” which I greatly needed for confession and preparing to worship.
Here are a few of the lyrics from There is Nothing:
Lord I come before You, To honor and adore You,
For who You are and all that You have done,
Lord I am not worthy,
My heart is dark and dirty
Still somehow You bid for me to come
So clothe me in humility,
Remind me, that I come before a King
And there is nothing,
There is nothing,
More precious, more worthy,
May I gaze deeper,
May I stand longer
May I press onward to know You Lord
So I go to church that morning, broken of myself, which is a bittersweet thing, and come to find that the sermon that day was about work…from good work ethics to coworkers. It was what I had been preaching to myself already that week and being broken of, but was good for me to not preach it to myself, but to hear it instead.
The chorus from another Laura Story song, Make Something Beautful became my prayer:
Take all of my life, all of my life, And make something beautiful.
I open my hand, trusting Your plan. Make something beautiful
so all will see Your work in me, as You make something beautiful
HIS WORK IN ME.....its nothing of myself. I can't change myself. I can be motivated, but when it comes down to it I can't throw off my sinful self. All I can do is run to Him. Because of Christ, He turns these dirty nasty ugly rags of my life and cleans them. What great hope that is!
And even now, a few weeks later, I have even more exposed sin in my life, but I can only hope in Him to change me and to make something beautiful!
