Break to Bloom: entering year 20

Any good seed has gotta die to flourish. In the art of making a flower out of myself, I struggle to strategize. How do I grow? How do I know what growth looks like? What will others think of my growth? I digress. The human condition plagues me once again. I grow despite myself and try and trace the leaves that form back to an origin, unaware of where they came from and how they got there. Flowers we all are headed toward the light. It's a wonderful thing to trust that the sunlight and soil's nutrients will provide. But oh so often, my mind flutters away from the Garden into what appears to be reality.

Idols are what we give greater value than God. I have found that this human tendency to make idols stems from a misplacement of two items of self-worth: our image and our performance.

We live in a culture infatuated with idolized self-mastery, where people identify a day as accomplishment when they can resist bad habits and control actions.

We care how we look to ourselves and others. We care how we do things.

So what happens when we break? When we lose control? The idols we have placed so highly have disappointed us as we falter and we shutter at the thought of others noticing.

But if we are Christ’s, we bear the image of God and our performance is rendered irrelevant in light of Christ's death and resurrection.

These impenetrable realities are gifts given to every believer and allow us to not only see our daily activity as a way to avoid sin, but moreover a means to bring obedience to our Father who we have the opportunity to esteem and glorify by the way we choose to live.

The structures we build, the lifestyles we create: may they no longer be concrete, enclosed buildings with no space for natural light to penetrate darkness.

May our man-made constructs be shattered as we see the beauty in being gardens for Jesus to shine His light upon, fostering the flourishing that only comes from abiding in sunlight and soil.

Let it be a year of breaking and blooming. May I wake up and know where my growth comes from. May I do the only work required of me: dying to myself. May I continue to know where my self-worth stems: an image and performance rooted in Jesus. And bloom, baby bloom.

If you want to partake in celebration with me, listen to "Mercy's War" by Jon Foreman, read Psalm 19, say something about how cool grace is and proceed to have a little dance party. That's what I'll be doing.

Also, thank you for reading my blog. I love and appreciate you, whoever you may be. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions.
I'd love to commit to doing this more and want to know who's reading!

xo
Annie