What God Made Is Good: God’s Original Intent
Several years ago I had a dream that I was in a palace garden with Jesus. We were sitting at a tea table and there were several other little girls sitting around the table. We were all around eight years old and had beautiful dresses and tiaras on. We had a great time together, just laughing and having fun with Jesus. For whatever reason, I looked to my left and saw an iron gate, where another little girl was pressing her face against the bars, looking in at our tea party. Her dress was ragged and dirty, her hair was a mess, and her face was smudged with soot. I leaned over to Jesus and asked Him who she was. He said, “She’s my daughter, too. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
I was very disturbed by this, but when I turned back to go get her, the girl was gone. I asked Jesus why she couldn’t come to the tea party and He told me that she could but that I was the one who needed to go get her. I was heartbroken, sitting there with Him and the other girls, not knowing how to find her.
It is VERY Good
When God made man, he formed him out of the dust of the earth and breathed life into his lungs. At that moment, he became a living being, not because air was pushed into his lungs, but because he was filled with the very presence of God Himself. Then, God caused a deep sleep to come over him and he took a rib from his side, and formed the woman. God brought her to Adam and He said it was very good. This is the only time in the creation account where God said it was very good—when man and woman were upon the earth—with His perfect Eden complete.
The only time God said it was not good, was when man was alone.
Genesis 2:18 TPT
Then Yahweh-God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. Therefore, I will fashion a suitable partner to be his help and strength.”
To be a helpmate is not just to be an assistant or to be out in a lesser position. The Hebrew word for “helpmate” used here can be translated as “strong rescuer” or “revealer of the enemy”. As women, we are called to be intercessors, to be the watchers in the spirit realm and pray into what God is saying and doing. Men are naturally built to be protectors and providers, but that does not negate women’s roles as protectors as well. We just do it in slightly different ways.
Women are also built to be nurturers and life-givers. This is an immense honor and responsibility. The question is if we will choose to do it the world’s way or God’s way.
Does Your Attitude Reflect the Heart of God?
Satan’s whole goal is to deface God’s creation. To deface something is to mar or destroy something’s face until it is unrecognizable. This is how Satan can “get back” at God, to cause Him pain through the very people He wants so desperately to have closeness in relationship with. If Satan can deface you and make you unrecognizable—if he can steal your identity as a daughter of God—then he can steal your purpose. Like we learned last week in Pastor Jim’s sermon, that purpose is to Love God, Love People, and Exemplify Christ.
To be a woman of God takes submission, which is trusting people in godly authority over you more than you trust yourself. Part of being in the Body of Christ is looking out for each other, and helping one another come into spiritual maturity. Feelings lie. We need trusted people around us who can help us when we are weak, and vice versa. Walking in surrender (which is not a bad word, by the way), can be described as “submitted strength.” We trust that the people we’ve surrounded ourselves with are hearing from God, and sometimes that takes trusting them more than we trust ourselves.
I see two attitudes that are at work in our world today:
Attitude #1 says, “I don’t need a man! I can do anything they can do!”
This stems from a heart of rebellion. You may be able to do a lot that a man can do, but if you are trying to usurp a man’s authority, or degrade his position, your attitude stinks.
Attitude #2 says, “I can help with that.”
This comes with a heart of humility. Having this kind of attitude does not mean you are “less-than”. It also does not mean that you have to become a doormat. It means that your heart is to come in low, in submission (first to God and then to godly authority) and do whatever it is benign asked of you with love and servanthood.
Who Do You Think You Are? (by Amanda Morris)
All too often, we allow circumstances to shift our identity. We see this scenario play out with Naomi in the book of Ruth:
Ruth 1:19-21 NIV
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” 20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
Naomi actually changed her name from ‘Naomi’, meaning pleasant, to ‘Mara’ meaning bitter. I think that Naomi was feeling a little bit of the bitterness the Israelites tasted when they came to the waters of marah (Exodus 15). Perhaps she had a hard time with this paradox of knowing God is in control but truly not understanding how or why God allowed her to get in that situation. In Pastor Jim’s sermon, he actually said “Sometimes God just wants to know what his child is made of!” I think that sometimes when life changes and our circumstances or our responsibilities change, it is a chance for God to see what we are really made of and how we will walk it out.
Mother’s Day messages have always been a bit difficult for me. I am a mother, but I am a single mother who has walked through marriage and divorce. And as much as I want to fit in the box we make for Christian mothers, I just don’t always feel like I fit. That is why I am so thankful to not only be a part of this amazing podcast with these wonderful women, but that God has allowed me to speak to a different perspective and season of life.
When we first started talking about ideas for this message I really didn’t know what I could contribute. But, that very night God told me, “There is strength and beauty in weakness”. I know He was referring to a continual conversation He and I have been having about circumstances in my life. I have been wrestling with God about the failed marriages, the long season of singleness, and what feels like isolation sometimes. That evening, God took me back this scripture:
2 Corinthians 12:5-9 NIV
5 I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. 6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations.Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
For me, Independence felt beautiful.
Figuring it all out on my own felt beautiful.
Not asking for help felt beautiful.
I can’t tell you the strength and pride I felt when I was getting it all done and handling it all!
Until…
I was burnt out. Alone. Isolating. Hyper independent. Prideful about my own abilities and strength. And that wasn’t beautiful. I felt defeated and I didn’t feel anything like myself. I wasn’t patient or kind and I felt my joy was just out of grasp.
A thorn was given to me. He gave me a gift. This season is a gift from my loving father, not a curse. He let me get to the end of myself where, even with all my abilities and determination, I would fall short.
He needed me to realize that the only way I could walk this out, while staying true to the person He created me to be, (the one that’s beautiful, soft, caring, patient, loving, and joy-filled) was to give me a ‘thorn’ so that I could see that His grace is sufficient. He wanted me to see that I do not need to try to become someone He did not create me to be.
I don’t need to be a strong man. I don’t need to be the ultimate planner. I don’t need to be a plumber, or electrician, or mechanic! I need to be me and let Him do what He promised to do—to care for and love me, and to bridge the chasm between my abilities and the task at hand. I know I am going to fall short because there are just some things I am not built for or created to do. I am not the man of my house. I am not my kids’ father, even when I am the only parent in the house. I am Amanda, the mother and woman of my house, and that is more than enough.
I need to walk in all that I am made for and let God fill in the rest. I do not need to change myself or try to change my identity, just because my circumstances and responsibilities have.
This verse found me last summer while I was in the thick of losing myself and becoming all sorts of things I wasn’t called to be:
Matthew 5:3-5 MSG
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”
God Didn’t Change His Mind
Genesis 3:22 NIV
“And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.””
When God said this, it wasn’t that He had changed his mind about his original plan for us. He wanted us to live forever, but he did not want us to have eternal life on our own sinful terms. Can you imagine being stuck with your sinful nature forever? It’s essentially a living death. Isn’t it wonderful that God made a way for us to be redeemed by Jesus’ sacrifice–not only so we can have eternal life on his beautiful terms, but so that we can partner with Him to bring Heaven to Earth?
Bringing back femininity is a fight for identity. God made you special, He made you the gender you are for a reason. But you are defined by so much more than your physical gender. That is a piece of who you are, but that is not all you are.
2 Corinthians 5:16 NLT
16 “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!”
We don’t look at each other in the flesh, or appearances alone, we look at people through the eyes of the Spirit of God!
I want to finish telling about the dream I started with at the beginning. After Jesus told me that I was the one who needed to go get the little raggedy girl watching outside the gate, I sat at the tea table, heartbroken. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I got up and went into the streets outside the garden walls. I looked everywhere for the little girl and I finally found her, huddled in a corner of one of the street stalls. I brought her back to the garden, and she sat down with us at the table. I introduced her to Jesus. Before my eyes, she was transformed. No longer was she dressed in dirty rags, but in a beautiful gown. No longer was her face smudged. She wore a smile for what must have been the first time in her life, and had a tiara nestled in her hair. She was home.
When I woke up from this dream, I was deeply moved. This is what it means to be a man or woman of God. We are all called to preach the Good News of the Kingdom—that those who were once far off are now brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13-14). The what of the Gospel never changes, but the how can. We all have different assignments, but we are all a part of the Body of Christ.
It’s not weakness to be gentle and nurturing. It’s not weakness to submit to godly authority and serve. When you do these things and live out who He created you to be as a woman, you get to display a part of God’s character! You bring life and that is something to be immensely proud of and humbled by.
