You Can't or You Won't???

 Gently, yet clearly, the revelation came.  No trumpets sounded.  Lightning didn't strike.  Truth revealed in love came shining the light of God's Word on my motives and intentions.  Not all of them were righteous.  Not all of them were sinful either.  I was laid bare before the Truth, and I am grateful. 

One of the revelations was that there have been a number of things I have been saying "I can't" about when the truth is "I won't".  My ability, or lack thereof, has nothing whatsoever to do with anything when I am in covenant with God who says in His Word that I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.  In light of this revelation, my journal will have some extra entries this week as I ponder on all He revealed. 

As I go about my day fixing meals, baking bread, and doing numberless little things homemakers do,  I can't help but think how apropos the timing of this revelation is. The month we celebrate love and our 35th wedding anniversary seems the perfect month to eliminate the "I cannots" from my vocabulary and thinking.  It also feels fitting that growth in honesty and recognition of inaccurate perspectives take place in this love-focused season. Transparency requires a confession of how I also find myself slightly surprised, while not surprised at all, that being transformed by the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2) is as ordinary of a process as former patterns of thought being replaced by new, truthful ones.  I wonder how many other aspects of living a godly life I have made more difficult and mysterious than they really are?  

Purging old lies for the Truth,

Shalom