KEEP YOUR CLOTHES ON

 

All month last month I heard these words flutter across my mind. Keep your clothes on. As a modern day woman m, engaging socially with other human beings every day and in particularly conservative countries, this instruction seemed a little obvious...thank you Lord? 

 

Keep your clothes on.

 

Keep your clothes on.

 

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HOLY SPIRIT?? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME? 

 

Ezekiel 16:6-14 The message version

 

 6-7“ ‘And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy, “Live! Grow up like a plant in the field!” And you did. You grew up. You grew tall and matured as a woman, full-breasted, with flowing hair. But you were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed.

 

 8-14“ ‘I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, God, the Master, gave my word. You became mine. I gave you a good bath, washing off all that old blood, and anointed you with aromatic oils. I dressed you in a colorful gown and put leather sandals on your feet. I gave you linen blouses and a fashionable wardrobe of expensive clothing. I adorned you with jewelry: I placed bracelets on your wrists, fitted you out with a necklace, emerald rings, sapphire earrings, and a diamond tiara. You were provided with everything precious and beautiful: with exquisite clothes and elegant food, garnished with honey and oil. You were absolutely stunning. You were a queen! You became world-famous, a legendary beauty brought to perfection by my adornments. Decree of God, the Master.

 

W O A H.

Okay, wow. Less obvious than I originally expected. So God, He’s strolling through the garden, healing people, giving them a drink, sustaining them, just hanging out, doing His thang. When He notices ME, kickin around in my own mess. I’m small and incapable of helping myself, of causing myself to grow, of cleaning myself up. So He does it for me. He speaks and by His breath and His word, out of His own mouth, He cleans me and causes me to grow. 

 

Next, He waits for me. He knows I need a little(a lot of) time to mature.  He patiently waits for me to be ready to enter into a relationship with Him. The baby steps at first are really tough. 

 

…Lord, you’re asking me to do what for whom?? 

 

Go talk to that lady.

 

…COME ON MAN, SHE’S JUST TRYING TO ENJOY HER DAY

 

Ari

 

…Lord!! 

 

Ariii?? It’s gonna bring the kingdom! You love bringing the kingdom! It’s fun!! 

 

…Dang it, okay! 

 

Or how about:

Ari, grab that bible. 

 

…*me disgruntled in the night*  Lord, it is 2 in the morning. 

 

Mhmm. Yup. Bible.

 

…grumbles my way to my bible

 

 

OKAY, BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS CROWD FAVORITE?! :

 

Ari, I’d like you to anoint that baby with oil and pray for him.

 

…I’m sorry, what? 

 

 

So on and so forth. All these to say, the Lord prepares us to be able to walk alongside Him in a perfect partnership. It mirrors a healthy marriage. But we’re not ready for His love naturally, so He meets us and prepares us for it over time. We gradually grow in our capacity to receive His love and walk in His partnership and reciprocate what he’s giving to us. At first we kick and bite and grumble and shake our fists at the sky. As a human being, I really want the glory that belongs to God. Which means I want to be independent of Him. At the end of the day, I want to be able to point my thumbs at my smiling face and attribute all that was good to moi. But the issue is when I live that way, that I don’t get to see who’s actually doing the heavy lifting. And the other issue that I ran into is that when things aren’t going well, guess where my thumbs are pointing? Still right at me. When God is the captain, I get to Run to Him with praise and surrender suffering right at His feet. He’s the only one who’s good at dealing with all of it, I stink at it.  BUT WOW: BONUS!!!!! WHEN I PRAISE GOD FOR THE GOOD STUFF, THEN I GET TO EXPERIENCE HIS LOVE BECAUSE MY HEART BECOMES SOFT TO RECEIVE IT! 

He promised that He’ll clothe us with beautiful, garments and adorn us with precious stones and beautifully made jewelry. He’ll feed us the finest foods from His own table and through all of this, we’ll be taken out of our helpless poverty, and raised into a position of honor and security in His presence. 

 

While I was in Georgia(the country) I felt like I’d stepped into that outfit. I felt like the Lord handed it to me and I put it on. It’s the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn. I’ve never been more myself in my life. 

 

As soon as we got into Armenia, I got sick, and it caused SO MUCH INSECURITY!!!! In Georgia, I associated being dressed in God’s splendor and living the way He designed me to with success and “being on top of things”. Of course I was still being human and making mistakes and running late and forgetting to do things, but it all felt minor. 

In Armenia, I felt like I was majorly failing which didn’t take long to turn into “I’m a major failure.”  I wasn’t hitting any of my expectations for myself, my scaley little tissue rubbed nose pointed to my lack of beauty, strong intrusive thoughts of the eating disorder I’ve been healed of entered, I couldn’t even drag myself out to meet with a squad mate that needed to talk because of a fever I was running. Failure.

 

My co-leader sweetly reassured me as I cried on the phone asking for his help. After I hung up, I crawled into my bed sobbing and apologizing to God for letting Him down. You do not need to carry this burden my love. It’s my yoke, I’ll carry it for you. 

 

I had a hard time believing what God was offering to me, but I let His words ring in my head as I slipped into rest. 

 

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters,”

Psalm 23:2

Was my first thought as soon as I woke up. 

 

What a beautiful reminder He gave me through the cold that I’m not Him and He doesn’t expect me to be. In that insecurity I ran away from the identity He gave me. I tried to tell Him that he’d gotten it wrong. That I was unworthy. That I was incapable. I accepted so many lies and rolled over under the force, surrendering to a liar over my Lord. 

 

Keep your clothes on.

 

I was made to be loved by God. I was made to walk with Him in the cool of the garden, I was made to be guided by Him, I was made to learn from Him and dance with Him and cry with Him and laugh with Him. I was made for Him! When I live that way, I become fully alive. When I don’t, I’m like Moldy Voldemort, living a half life, a cursed life, stealing, killing, destroying, and trying to muscle my way into position. 

 

I don’t want a half life and Jesus doesn’t want that for me. He wants me to have life, and have it in the full, reigning from my position next to Him. Through complete dependence on Him, I’m brought into a sacred promise where I can don finery that’s not mine and enter into a position I’ve done nothing to earn and have the fullness of life. These clothes as an outer expression of an inward covenant that I’ve committed to a relationship with Christ, and I’m His.  

 

So no matter how vile, how powerful, how tempting, how deceiving the call to take off those clothes is, I pray that God will give me the strength not to. That I would remember the truth that I was made to be loved, I was made to walk with Him, what He says about who I am is what matters and everything else is nonsense. I won’t go back to being naked and living like I’m not loved! 

 

We are ruling and reigning my friends! Let’s keep those clothes on, eh? 

 

 

AND, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:

If YOU will kindly look above and note that my fundraising bar is back to zero. SURPRISE!!! That is on purpose! This very January, 2020, I will be returning to the field as an alumni!

i would love it if you considered partnering and donating so that I can keep on bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth by being a living, breathing little Christ! Thank you for reading what God is doing in my heart lately! May God bless you and keep you under His soft and wonderful wings!