Chapter 3: The Prisoners
“The chiseling process is
about subtraction rather than addition. To grow in holiness and grace, we stand
in God’s loving presence and agree to let go of anything He wants to chip away
(60- Participant’s Guide).” So many
times we try to add something in our lives to either replace or fix something
but really it’s about subtraction so we need to agree to him and let go and let
him chisel.
We need to have the
ability to see beyond what is to what can be. Will we let a label that someone
or something has given us to define us forever?
Max Lucado’s You are Special --- WATCH IT!! (8 minutes
long)
“Labels only stick if you
let them…Those labels start out as little threads of self-dissatisfaction but
ultimately weave together into a straight jacket of self-condemnation (33).”
“I was an inmate in a
prison of my own design, locked behind the many, many labels I’d put on myself
over the years…some prisons don’t require bars to keep people locked inside.
All it takes is their perception that they belong there. A soul who believes
she can’t leave…doesn’t (34).”
“A messy closet does not
make a me a mess. It makes me a child of God who has a messy closet (40).”
“God is chiseling us,
making us new… so we can do good works… Works that God has prepared for us,
which means he knows best how to prepare in us the character we need to fulfill
our calling…oh that we might hear the purposeful
clink of the Master’s chisel and call it grace(39).”
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