You
are dust, nothing more, but also nothing less.
Ash Wednesday starts the 40 days of Lent in which we reorient our lives toward God. The start of that reorientation is admitting that we need to reorient ourselves in the first place.
For example, some people give greatly to their neighbors and their communities with money and volunteering, and that is wonderful. However, at the same time, some of these people feel the need to have great recognition for their efforts.
Exaggerating the point, Jesus says they “sound a trumpet” in the presence of the community “so that they may be praised by others.” It is an exaggeration, but you get the point. If you require recognition for your goodness, then you may need to reorient yourself.
If you have ever said, “I don’t need to be thanked or anything, that’s not why I do it but…” stop right there. That “but” before you continue to say that a “thank you would be nice” or some other follow-up condition of your goodness is the clue that your life of faith probably needs reorientation. Somehow, in some way, it has become about you rather than about the unconditional love that we share with one another in the body of Jesus Christ.
In similar ways, Jesus tells you to beware of your motivations for praying and fasting. These are ways to connect with our heavenly Father, but if they somehow become something more than that, such as proving to others that you are a religious person, or shaming them that they are not, then your life of faith probably needs reorientation.
You want to know how great you are? The Bible says that you are dust. You were formed out of the dust of the earth, and in the end you fall back into the dust of the earth. You will rust away, and break, and be stolen away in the end just like all of your possessions.
You are dust, nothing more, but also nothing less.
I was once walking along a creek bed with a friend when she suddenly stopped at the edge of the creek bed and said, “That is beautiful.” I thought she was talking about the flowers, but she was not. She was talking about the dirt on the edge of the creek.
“That will make some beautiful clay!”
She then took a handful of the dirt, added some water from the creek, and started to shape and mold it. Suddenly, I had lost my friend to the imaginings of her creative mind as she worked the clay into a beautiful form.
When I say that “you are dust, nothing more, but also nothing less,” I think of her and her clay. It reminds me that though we may be dust, we are God’s dust. In the same way as my friend, Genesis 2:7 says that “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
That molding and shaping and breathing means something. This means that, though you are dust, you are also a work of art. God intended you to be. God shaped and molded every vein and muscle. God shaped every finger and toe.
In Psalm 139, the psalmist cries out, “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works.”
You were intended to be. You were beautifully made, and you were made for a purpose.
If you have no idea what that purpose is, look at Jesus Christ, God’s son. Look at Jesus’ love of the sinner. Look at Jesus’ love for those who are broken, in need of healing, and yearning to be free from all that holds them down. Look at Jesus’ love on the cross. Jesus’ life was the opposite of seeking praise. The cross meant ultimate humiliation, weakness, and death. But, it was done for a purpose: to set us free. It was done for the purpose of love.
You are dust; nothing more, but also nothing less. You are God’s dust. You have been shaped and molded by the love of God into at beautiful creation. And, you have been shaped and molded for a reason…for a purpose. You have been beautifully shaped into a vessel that carries Jesus’ unconditional, self-sacrificial love.
So, take the time this Lent to repent of and let go of anything that holds you back from being this beautifully created vessel of Jesus’ love. Allow yourself to be reshaped and remolded into the creation God made you to be.
After-all, you are dust; nothing more, but also nothing less. You are God’s beautifully and wonderfully shaped dust.
No comments:
Post a Comment