Sealed

I was weighted this morning in prayer as I thought about the abundance of unknown circumstances in our life. It is evident at the end of the day when I have pushed through the hours without depositing my weights and worries onto Jesus, and even more so when I have. You know what I mean? Not depositing them into a lengthy status or tweet or blog post. Thrusting them away from me into the arms of Jesus.

In the end, we return to Jesus for Jesus. The purpose we have is to always be for Him. Our hopes, dreams, ambitions, and plans have no meaning or ground without Him, but with Him, have every possibility to become reality.

I don’t pray pretty prayers. More often than not, they are ugly, desperate, weighted, and heavy, because I live in a world filled to the brim with difficulties, trials, and burdens. And I don’t want them. I want Jesus to have the words that are hard to say, the cries for help, and the praises through it. My purpose is always to return to Him, a purpose that allows me to thrust my unknowns, my words of every kind of discouragement, onto Jesus. And in return, He fills me. He lightens my soul, integrates His grace into my every step and thought.

It is okay for life to be stinky and difficult, thick with unknowns. Give it to Jesus. Offer it to Him. He wants it. Get ugly in your prayers and let Jesus release you from carrying the heavy stuff. The cross isn’t a one-time thing that only laid to rest a selection of sins and difficulties. It’s a continuous forgiveness, an ongoing love that relinquishes us from sin, burdens, fears of unknowns, so that we may be for Him. Unhindered by our humanness, we become clothed with Christ. You put to shame the sacrifice of His blood when you continue carrying the things He died to free you from. The unknowns of life have no ground when we are known by the One who provides all worth.

Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession–to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:13b-14