I couldn’t get them
out of my mind. Over and over, minute by
minute, day after day. These thoughts,
this movie reel of all the things. The
things I wasn’t good at, the things I had done wrong, my weaknesses, my sin…the
ways I had failed and thought I had failed.
I was putting on my mascara for goodness sakes—what was wrong with
me? “I’m not…I should have…I can’t
believe I…I’m so…too much…not enough…”
They were all I could think about.
They were heavy. They were
persistent.
I sensed a nudge to write them down. So I wrote--things that are embarrassing to admit now,
but these were my chains. Pages. I was
plagued with these thoughts. As I
skimmed the paper I had just filled I saw it—I was being accused.
Then a moment I
will never forget. Words I had read days
before were brought into my mind just as timely as a drop of rain on a drought-ridden
land.
But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s
physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish
and free from accusation
…Therefore, there is now no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus,
because through Christ Jesus the law of
the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because
it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,
Imagine my delight reading these words—without blemish…free
from accusation…no condemnation…set me free…what the law was powerless to do,
God did…in order that the righteous requirements might be fully met in us. Really?
No accusation? No condemnation? None?
Not even one? Not even one. I was not condemned, but set free. Set free?
Completely free? Yes, completely.
I had been living under the accusations, believing that
they were an accurate commentary on my life.
But they weren’t the truth about me at all. The truth would have set me free, not locked
me up.
The accuser was my enemy and fed me this mixtape of
self-focus and despair, making me paralyzed and hopeless.
He does that doesn’t he? He is never short supply of past sins, regrets, and misinterpretations of others’ thoughts and actions toward us. He glories in our inward focus and abhors when our eyes are lifted. He causes us to question God and His heart
for us, painting all of life a dark shade of grey, trying to convince us
that that’s life’s actual color.
But these words, these life-giving words that began seeping
in, were acquitting me. No, not just acquitting
me, they were exposing the mess that was my mind and shining the light on all
that my Jesus did. He took it all. Were some of these true? Sure, some were, but in Christ I was no
longer identified, labeled, or even guilty for them. In Christ, I possessed the perfect
righteousness that was His. It was
unfair, really—this trade He made. He
took all of my weaknesses and sins—accurate or perceived, large or small, and
traded all of Himself for it. He traded the accuser's words that were bringing death for His freedom-words of life. He was
condemned so I could be set free. That’s
hard to get, but in this moment, I got it.
He wasn’t just loosening the chains, giving me room to move around in
them, He was cutting them into pieces giving complete freedom.
I’m not sure why living in this freedom feels like such a
fight. My mind drifts to accusations
like these often, but this cycle of redemption brings sweet intimacy: I see the mess, even live in it for a time—He
reminds me of the cross, that He’s the chain breaker—the words that give life
remind me that in Him I’m not accused—He draws me close—I live in freedom and
awe. I’m free. And I am undone. Because He is undoing me. This is truth, this is the truth we live in
and invite others to enjoy. He alone gives
freedom and life.
After posting my sharpie walls on instagram a few days ago, I decided to share with you the story of these walls.
I guess I didn't actually give you a 'how to' because the how to is:
Paint your walls,
write whatever you want on them with a large sharpie. The end.
But as my 8 year old sat on the top of the potty (this is in an itty bitty potty room), with Bible in hand, reading Romans 8 to me as I teetered on a stool and wrote, I asked God to write these words on my heart and the heart of everyone who entered this little room. And I think He is.
