Bullet Proof Glass

The Diamond

I am a diamond.  

I'm not being proud in saying that.  I don't believe this about myself because it's something my dad said to me...although many times he did.  I don't believe it because my mom did either.  Although many times her love and care for me communicated this very fact.  I don't believe it because I have accomplished great things or because people have given me praise even though sometimes that has been true also.  I don't believe it because I like what I see in the mirror - I used to, but the fact is I'm getting old now, gray is showing up, fleckish in my hair and beard and I'm definitely rounder than I'd like.  Nah, don't necessarily like what I see in the mirror these days...and that's ok.  

I don't believe it because my wife says I'm awesome, which she has been known to do once in a while when I do something really impressive.  I don't believe it because my kids adore me even though I know for a fact that they do. I don't believe I'm a diamond because I'm extraordinarily wealthy...although I'm sure I am in the top 5% wealthiest people in the world just by the fact that I'm a middle-class American.  

No, none of those reasons are why I believe...today, finally...that I AM a diamond.  

                There's two feet of topsoil and a little bit of bedrock

                Limestone in between

                Fossilized dinosaur and a little patch of crude oil

                A thousand feet of granite underneath...

                And then...there's me.   (Brad Paisley, "Two Feet of Topsoil")

That's what I believed about myself.  I believed I was so far down, I couldn't go any farther.   It was a dirty, false, lying spirit of self-loathing and I've believed it for much of my life.

Oh sure, there used to be a time when I was pretty high on myself...for all the WRONG reasons. It probably started when I was a teenager and I thought I knew everything ...literally (like MOST teenagers think, right?)  I thought I was really something because of my talent or my athletic ability or my good looks or my intelligence or my sense of humor.  Pride can make one believe some really outrageous things about one's self...and I actually believed THOSE things about myself for all the WRONG reasons...for a long time.

I mean, let's be honest here.  When it comes right down to it, our success in life is really rooted in what we believe and much of it has to do with what we believe about OURSELVES.  Do we believe the truth or a lie about who we really are?  I've believed lies, for the most part and for most of my life.  And my life began to show it.  I got to a point where my life was crumbling around me in every way...relationally (my marriage was a disaster), financially (I lost pretty much everything and had to start over at zero), health-wise (I had to have a brutal surgery on my neck, got addicted to pain meds and gained about 30 lbs), spiritually (bankrupt here too, couldn't hear God's voice at all).  What a nasty, black freakin' lump of coal my heart had become.

It takes hitting rock bottom to finally buy into and understand the TRUTH about one's self.  Wait a minute - I thought I was AWESOME???  What happened?

When I first became a Christ follower back in 1982, people used to say to me, "God doesn't care what you look like on the outside.  He cares about your heart."  Well, that sounded real nice and everything and since I felt pretty good about how I looked on the outside ANYWAY at that time, I thought, "Sure, God loves me.  I mean, what's not to love?  Right?  What does my heart even have to DO with any of it?"  

That kind of thinking got me through most of my life, until I got into my 40's and I started having to look at my heart and really see what was in there.  I mean, how bad could it really be?

It was bad.  Really, REALLY bad.  

                Once I prayed.  I knew not what I said.

                Show my myself, O Lord, alas, I did not dread

                The hideous sight, that now I shudder to behold

                Because I knew not self aright.

               

                And I was lead, in answer to my prayer

                As step-by-step to find my wretched heart laid bare!

                Then I prayed, "Stay!  O Lord, I cannot bear the sight"

                Because I knew not self aright.

                                                                                                -Phil Keaggy, "Once I Prayed"

Once God gave me a really good look at what was in there...I wanted to vomit.  It took me 48 years of life to really, truly come to the very end of myself.  For me to FULLY realize that my heart is an absolute train-wreck, a nuclear-contaminated wasteland, an empty, condemned shell.

                "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

                                                                                                - Jeremiah 17:9

Without going into the dirty details, the end of myself - you know, "ROCK BOTTOM" - looked like this for me:    

                Addiction, unfaithfulness, dishonesty, pain, shame and self-hatred

That's what I saw when the light was shown into my heart.  What does one DO with all of that?  Where can one go to escape it?  It is complete and utter selfishness.

Ugh.

Why do I do the things I don't want to do?  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

This is where the lies take complete hold of a man.  When you really come to grips with these things in your heart and you acknowledge that they are there and they have caused you to do terrible things that you hate and that you are ashamed of, things you hate, things that hurt others and hurt yourself too. When you finally grasp the depth of that depravity...you believe the lie: 

I am no good.

Well, that's just not true.  It's NOT!  It is a dirty lie from the pit of hell.  The greatest of lies probably.

If our heart of hearts was REALLY no good, if we really were of no value, worthless, wretched to the core...Jesus would not have died for us.

WHO will rescue me from this body of death?  Jesus will.  Jesus does.  Jesus HAS.

And no matter how the enemy (READ: the devil, Satan) wants to spin this lie, sugar coat it...no matter how he wants to frame it to each of us...the truth is that God LOVES us. He loves me IN SPITE of what I've done.  My actions don't define me.  What others (even those closest to me) think of me doesn't define me.  What the enemy says about me doesn't define me.  There is one and only ONE thing that defines me and this is what GOD the Father thinks of me.  And here is what he says that is:

• His love is not conditional on me achieving something or being good.                               "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."                                                                          -Romans 5:8

•  I am his son, a member of his family.                                                                                     "Yet to all who received him, to those who believe in his name he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a father's   will, but born of God.                                                    -John 1:12-13

•  I am redeemed and forgiven.

            "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with   

            the riches of God's grace."                                         -Ephesians 1:7

            "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us out into the kingdom

            of his Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

                                                                                                -Colossians 1:13-14

• I am a new creation.

             "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has 

              come!"                                                                      -I Corinthians 5:17

• I am more than a conqueror.

                "No, in all these things we are MORE than conquerors in him who loved us."

                                                                                                -Romans 8:37

• I am a citizen of heaven.

                "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's

                people and members of God's household."             -Ephesians 2:19

THAT is what God says about me.   That is what he thinks of me. I choose NOT to believe the lies of the past any more.  I choose to believe these things he has said about me.  He ought to know.  HE created me!  How dare I say something to the contrary!  Who do I think I am?  

That really is the question, isn't it.  Who DO I think I am?

And not only did God say these things...he backed them all up by signing them in blood.  Jesus loves you and me so un-imaginably intensely that he died for us!

                I got treasure up in heaven, I got dirt all over me

                I have only scratched the surface of the man I'm meant to be

                I got something down inside of me that only You can see

                Help me dig a little deeper and

                Set that diamond free.  (Brandon Heath, "Diamond")

I AM a diamond.

Because my Father SAYS I am.