I'm not really a super emotional person but the teaching I had last week here at YWAM Orlando in my School of Ministry Development wrecked me. Since SOMD started, I have never been more aware of how much my past choices, events, and life affect the choices I make today and the way I think about people and things. The thing I have had to realize is that you never just make a decision. Something, somewhere in your life affects every decision you make in life and makes you make the decisions you make. For example, when I was a freshman in high school, I formed a stress fracture in my left foot from days on end of soccer practices and games. This happened more towards the end of the season and ended my freshman season a whole month early because I was in a boot. I was crushed. I remember being so upset because soccer was my passion and now I couldn't play anymore that season. And that was hard but the thing that affected me the most and still does today was my teammates. Many of the upperclassman and even my own classmates would talk about me behind my back and say that my injury was fake and that I just did it so I didn't have to play anymore. And that hurt me. Because for some reason, they saw me as someone who would do that and didn't see my true heart for the game. So years later, I still find myself in moments of pain, both emotionally and physically and I won't tell people because I'm afraid of being a bother or being seen as something I am not.
So yeah, there are so many moments of our life that we don't even realize are still affecting us today. It reminds me of Adam and Eve right after they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The second thing God asks them is , "Who told you that you were naked?" This is so key because prior to this, they were unaware of their nakedness. But someone or something made them aware of that fact. God didn't say they were naked. Something else in their life made them painfully aware of it. And there are things in our life today that we need to ask ourselves, "Who told us that?" Who told you that you aren't beautiful? Who told you that you aren't enough? Who told you that you can't do this? Who told you this or that? Who told you that you are anything less than what God says about you? God won't tell you something that isn't true. He is the only one in Heaven and on earth who has any authority to tell you who you are. He created you and therefore He knows every little part of you.
God is the only God in any religion that doesn't know how we feel because He is all knowing but rather because He felt and experienced everything we ever could. By the time Jesus was three years old, He had escaped gendercide, experienced homelessness, and been a refugee in a foreign nation as He fled from King Herod. Jesus lived in Nazareth which was a town full of prostitution. He didn't live in a nice little quaint town. He experienced loss when had His friend John the Baptist died. He hung on that cross to look down and see only His mom and brother, every other friend having abandoned Him. His earthly father Joseph either died or had abandoned Him, meaning Jesus experienced the loss of a family member. So yeah, Jesus experienced it all and knows exactly how we feel,
But the thing I find most unique about Jesus is that when he rose from the dead, He had the scars still in His hands. He kept them because they screamed the love He had for us and told the greatest love story to ever exist. Say you had a pencil and I needed one. I will offer you $1,000 for that pencil. What would you say? No, that's STUPID because that pencil is absolutely not worth that much money. So is Jesus stupid? By many of our standards and our response to that question, we seem to think so. Jesus didn't look at us and pay a high price for something that was worth nothing. No, he looked at us and saw people worth the blood of an eternal God, worth the highest price possible. You see, the cross didn't give you worth. Instead, it screamed the incredible worth you already have. So don't you dare say you are worth nothing because it just isn't true. Jesus saw your worth and wanted to pay the price for you . You are worth life itself, that's how much you're worth.
So why is it that daily we crucify Jesus again and again and again. Daily we blame Him for allowing us to go through pain we didn't choose. Pain we didn't want. Pain we didn't deserve. When in reality, He points to the scars in His hands and feet and says, "I already paid for the pain you go through on the cross." He died for the sinful things people do that cause pain in the world. He died for the past wounds that still come open today. He died for the anger, the lack of justice, the horrible acts, and the moments someone or something told you you are anything less than what He says you are.
So often we try and fix the scars in our life from past hurts and places of pain. Jesus isn't a plastic surgeon. He rose from the dead with His scars because they were part of the story that was painful but that led to even greater things. Those scars drove the story of salvation. The drove all of Jesus' disciples to tell the whole world. They even drove every single one of the disciples to die for the story of the resurrection. And your scars are driving your story today. For me, the past scars of rejection and a lack of a chosen love drive me to have a heart for those who are rejected, forgotten, and feel alone in the world. When I see people who are hurting and broken just like I was and still am, my heart goes out to them. My heart breaks for the girls who feel unloved. My heart breaks for the young women who look int he mirror and doubt if a boy could ever love them. My heart breaks for the children whose parents abandoned them. My heart breaks for the women whose spouses cheated on them. My heart breaks for the women and children in the sex trade who feel like they have no where else to go and no one sees them. My heart hurts for the people who were told anything less than what their Heavenly Father has to say about them. All because I have experienced some pain of rejection in my life and still face it today. I've tried so hard to let go of the pain, to get ride of it, to never feel it again. But there are still echos of it in my life. But without those echos, I wouldn't be able to feel the pain those rejected and unwanted and those that feel unseen feel. Those scars are mine and they drive me to love with a deeper understanding and be gracious with a bigger heart .
In no way am I saying that God caused that pain. But maybe, just maybe God leaves those traces of it in my life and in yours to rise up a generation of Christians who can love and help because they have felt that pain before, just as Jesus experienced and knows that pain we face. So find those, "Who told you moments?" in your life. Let them go and remind yourself of the things God says about you. And don't let those echos of pain define you but let them help you love deeper and meet people right where they're at.
You have a story. It is important. Tell the world.
*most of these ideas and teachings came from a teacher in my class: Troy Sherman