Recently I came across a quote by the internationally known pastor, Rick Warren. In this quote, he mentioned how God will turn your test into a testimony, and your mess into your message. I feel like I must have heard this quote 1000 times before, but for some reason the importance of it never really hit me until today. Whether you’re a Christian or not, we all will (if you haven’t already) get into some pretty messy situations. Whether it was us who got ourselves into that messy place, or it being out of our control, the results can be devastating to our minds and souls. Even King David in Psalms 6 goes through this struggle! He states “Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?”.
A lot of times, it may even make us feel unworthy to call God our father, bringing up the question, “How could God possibly still want me after that?” One thing I can confidently and boldly say is that those doubts and questions are not of God, but from the Devil. The Devil will take any weakness we have, especially the sin we struggle the most with, and try to use it against us, making us a slave to it. What we have to realize instead is that there is nothing we could do to stop God’s love and grace from pouring out onto us, and that through Him, we are free of the bondage of that sin. We are not defined by that sin, but by the freedom we find in Christ. In Romans 6, it states “Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace”.
One of the amazing things, once we surrender our lives to God’s grace and experience the freedom that comes with it, is that we are then able to use that mess we went through as a message to those around us. We are able to have better empathy and help others walk through the same struggle that we went through. So instead of listening to the Devil when he reminds you of whatever “mess” you went through, make sure you use it instead as a message to bring those who might not know Jesus, to know Jesus.
