Come Back

PINIMAGEI really like the word redeemed, like a lot. I throw it around and when I talk about who I used to be I always talk about being redeemed, then I realized this morning I don’t know the actual definition, so I looked it up.

Redeem: To compensate for the faults or bad aspects of something or someone

Now I like it even more. It’s what God does for all of us, falling short doesn’t begin to describe the performance I try to put on some days. I have all the right answers and I know the right scriptures but my heart is unclean. I am prideful, mean, and selfish. I am human. I am coming to terms with this, that my humanness will always be my stumbling block that I will get more in the way of the mission than I will help it. That’s where the redeeming comes in.

To compensate for the faults or bad aspects of something, redeemed. We all need redeeming our performances will never live up to the standard by which we are called. I will make mistakes and be snippy when I should be patient, speak when I should hold my tongue, and so on and so forth.

This is only discouraging if I forget the redeeming part.

People keep asking me what I want girls to hear from my book, what message do I want to send, what do I want them to read in my pages?

It’s not about a good story or wanting to have a book with my name on it. What I really pray, what I hope for with all my heart is that they will see redemption in the pages. I pray that when they look at whatever mess their humanness has gotten them into they will see a God who can compensate for their faults. We all need to know this, fall where it may, we need to know that our shortcomings won’t affect our relationship with Jesus. I need to know that when I don’t live up to the holy standard (which I never do) that he will step in and redeem it.

He always does.

I made you, shaped you: You’re my servant. O Israel, I’ll never forget you. I’ve wiped the slate of all your wrongdoings. There’s nothing left of your sins. Come back to me, come back. I’ve redeemed you.

Isaiah 44:21-22 (message)

And I can breathe again because its there in the words, come back to me, come back. I’ve redeemed you. Each day he beckons me back, no matter where I was yesterday he has redeemed me. No matter what mistakes I have made, he has redeemed me, no matter what kind of mess I have managed he has redeemed me.

I pray you get the same message today, I pray you hear him whisper “come back. I have redeemed you.”