If Your Heart Holds a God-Dream that Seems Impossible

If your heart holds a God-dream that seems impossible . . . 

If you feel like the last person in the world to do what it seems God is calling you to do . . . like He got you confused with someone else.

If God’s plans don’t make sense, you are in good company.

I could tell you I feel that way all the time, but don’t take my word for it. I can list people who we consider saints who were unqualified for their God-jobs–a list of biblical characters who didn’t have the right credentials either.

• Paul killed Jewish-Christians
• Peter denied knowing Jesus
• Jonah ran from God
• David was a adulterer and murderer.

And the list can go on and on. One of those people was a woman who had been healed by Jesus.

Before Jesus’s touch, she was crazy. The Bible doesn’t say that exactly, but it does tell us that she was possessed with seven demons. Seven demons would probably make a person crazy. Her story is one of my favorites. I like Mary Magdalene. She was determined to find Jesus.

Peter and John walked home, but Mary Magdalene stayed. I think all of those years fighting demons gave her the strength to frantically search for the body of a dead Jesus when he went missing.

When she did finally encounter the Living Christ, he gave her a new purpose. I think it is the most remarkable thing, and it gives me hope in my calling. A crazy woman was chosen to tell others that Christ had risen!

I’ve included this in a chapter of A Mary Like Me. Here’s an excerpt:

John doesn’t tell us that the disciples questioned Mary’s sanity, but the other Gospels do. Mark tells us, ‘When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping (wailing). When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it’ (16:9-11, addition mine).

They didn’t believe it. The didn’t believe her.

In the past, this probably would have infuriated Mary called Magdalene. This was the demon she fought most of her life. People never believed her; they just dismissed her as “Crazy Mary.”

“Oh Crazy Mary is seeing things again!”

But I don’t believe their disbelief had the power it once held to send her back to the tombs. Now after seeing the resurrected Jesus, hearing him call her by her given name, healed yet a second time, Mary simply told the disciples she had    encountered the risen Christ, and then she walked away. She no longer needed to beg and plead for them to believe her s she once did. She knew whom she had seen. She had touched him, clung to his ankles in worship, and cried tears of joy over those nail scarred feet.”

[bctt tweet=”Jesus uses the most unlikely. If you feel unqualified, then you are qualified. “]

• Jesus employs those who simply show up. The ones who just want to be near him and will do whatever it takes to find him.
• Jesus gives purpose to the ones who worship him and desire to serve him.

Mary did not expect to receive anything from Jesus that day. She expected to serve him one final time. But she got so much more.

If your heart holds a God-sized dream, keep seeking HIM, and don’t give up.

He will find you.

 

Finding Purpose in Seeking Jesus

 

andy