Living Loved.

"Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their won efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strnuous moral striving OR because you trust him to do them in you? Don't these things happen amoung you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God." -Galatians 3:2-6

This was in my reading last night. As I read I saw things in a COMPLETELY different light. There are some things about myself that Ive been trying to change. Things that Im not proud of or like. Ive been trying to 'fix' them for a while...And I have done all I know how to do to fix them..Make lists. Do better. Do this, do that..blah blah blah. When I read this it was like someone smacked me in the face with this amazing truth :) YOU dont do ANYTHING to change...you trust GOD to do it!!! It asked what it would be like to see growth as a process of letting God "comlete..what was begun by God". For God did begin the work and He isnt finished....This example came to mind: if a potter is making an ashtray (for example) that ashtray can try ALL it wants to to be something more, something different. BUT if (while still on the wheel..is that a correct term?? lol) if its TOTALLY submitted to the potter, then the potter can change that ashtray into something like a beautiful vase....(Im not into making things out of clay lol obviously haha but that example came to me and I thought it was a great example of an amazing truth) We are in the hands of The Potter..a Mighty GOD..a God who loves us unconditionally. A God who wants us to be 'like Him'. So..if we just sit back, breathe, and LIVE LOVED....HE will make all these changes for us..from the INSIDE OUT. :)