When I woke up this morning, my first thought to put on the Crown Chasers Facebook page was something like this: Ladies, get fixed up, put on your makeup, fix your hair really pretty and just feel great today. We were running late today for church, had an overall crummy morning and then as I sat alone (for what felt like the first time in months), it hit me! How often do we do this? How many women spend countless hours getting gussied up and spend obscene amounts of money to have the latest and greatest in fashion? These things are fine, in fact, to celebrate my 50 pound weight loss, I got new heels, a celebration made even better by the fact that they were 75% off. But, here's the point, those things can change how we look, maybe even how we feel momentarily. They cannot change our heart. They cannot forever hide how we truly feel about ourselves. Those things cannot mask the betrayal of past lovers, the heartache over the loss of loved ones, the regret of past failures, the disappointments caused by the ones we love taking us for granted. So often, we lie to ourselves that everything is OK. We put on our mask, go out into the world and pretend that we're not falling apart because to admit that we are falling apart means that we are not in control. The fact is, we never were in control to begin with. God is in control and He is waiting for us to fall apart, just waiting for us to admit that we don't have it all figured out. Once we do that, it invites Him in and only He, only God can put the pieces of our life back together.
One of my very favorite scriptures from 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 MSG offers this promise.
"May God Himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together-spirit, soul and body- and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he'll do it!"
Chasing Crowns is not always pretty, no matter what we're wearing or what we look like. Chasing crowns is not always high heels and sequins. Pursuing our relationship with Christ most often, or at least at times, can be an ugly thing. Before you disagree, let me explain....the closer I get to Christ, His light exposes everything ugly and dark in me. Growing closer to Christ means that my jealousy, my anger, my hatred, will be exposed. It is only then that Christ can continue His transformative work of making me more like him. Sometimes a crown chaser has to stop running, and be still long enough to reevaluate what it is they're chasing. What am I running for? What is it that I'm so desperately searching for? If the answer is anything other than simply the truth of Christ, then all our efforts are in vain. If the answer is anything other than to create for ourselves the same image Christ has for us, we are running in vain.
Just now, as Merritt was watching Spongebob, (I know, I know...) I heard the line, "You can't hide what's inside." That is absolutely true, we cannot hide what is truly inside us. What's inside us comes out in how we treat other people. If we have no respect for ourselves, we won't respect others. If we are angry and bitter inside, then we treat others angrily and we hold grudges against even those we love.
The image of little girls playing dress up, trying on their mom's high heels and make up comes to mind. Only, we're not little girls anymore and the consequences of playing dress up are much higher. Relationships are at stake, our children's well being is at stake, perhaps even our own sanity is at stake. This next statement should be censored and is rated R, but trying to hide who we really are by how we dress, how much make up we wear, or even with how much we work out, for some of us is like choosing to make love with the lights out. We want to hide what we look like, who we truly are, like wearing a padded bra, or sucking our gut in when we take pictures. For still others, trying to hide who we truly are and how we truly feel about ourselves results in them freely offering themselves ,especially sexually to someone other than their husband, to someone who is not worthy of being trusted with who they are. What Christ really wants from us, what our spouses truly want from us is just us.....for us to be real and who we truly are. But, that is often too difficult to believe or accept, that someone, anyone, even God would love us just for who we are. Thankfully, there is hope for even the most broken.
Ephesians 5:13-14
"But everything exposed by the light becomes visible-and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.""
Letting Christ shine on us might be painful for a while, but if we let Christ expose the ugliness in us, He will begin to pick the pieces up and put them back together, ultimately forming the image He has created us to portray. We let God expose the ugly things in us; we apologize to the ones in the path of said ugliness. Then, guess what??? We become a light!!! "Everything that is illuminated becomes a light." Praise God!!!
I have friends who have seen the movie, Safe Haven, and loved it. On the trailer, it says, "It's not what you're running from, it's what you're running to." I agree with that statement. What we're running from plays a great role in what or who we end up running to. For me, I am running from past mistakes and countless failures. I am running from the 230 pound woman who hid behind her weight in fear of actually being used by God . I have always been afraid of so many things, afraid especially of being "exposed". No more! Running has helped me to freely "expose" myself in some ways....to gain confidence in who I am in Christ. Choosing to be made uncomfortable has helped me to know the love and acceptance of Christ in so many ways I never would have. Being made uncomfortable keeps me humble.
1 Corinthians 9:25
"Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever."
Final thoughts: Let us each and everyone, examine the crowns we are chasing. Let us choose to let Christ "expose" us and make us a light to shine in dark places. Let us not run for a crown that will not last, but for one that will last forever. Let us trust in Christ to transform us into the image He has created us to portray. Let us not hide behind high heels, sequins and lipstick, but let us see ourselves as Christ does, masterpeices just waiting to be revealed.
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