Yours

Today, you get a glimpse into how my mind actually works. I apologize in advance...

Last week, I talked about God's artistry, ending with the great care that He put into crafting you just as you are. Perfectly you. As you were intended to be. Were it not so, He would have lumped you back together and started over. Then I had this thought:

Like any great artist, I believe God always signs His work. That means somewhere in you is the signature of God, scrawled across your life. Probably in red ink. I'm not sure that this is the same as your calling; your calling is your function. This is more...of an inherent bit of art in you. It's something you wouldn't be, you couldn't be, unless God had specifically created you to be exactly that. It's this very unique thing that is purely God in you; that is His signature. That is the evidence of His work. That is the place where He begins to draw your attention to more than the creation, but rather, to the Creator.

Yes, you are a signed work of God. 

But my mind does not stop there because thinking of the sign led me to the signet ring and a piece I wrote not long ago about an older song we sing at church called Come Thou Fount. There's a line in the song that says, "Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above." Sealing something in the courts was a sign from the King that this had been decreed and it could not be broken. It was forever to be as the King declared.

Which means when God seals your heart, for His courts, it's forever. It's the decree of the King. God has written His name on you, and He has sealed your heart with His signet ring. 

This inevitably brought me to a place where I could only consider everything I've come through to get to this point. Rather, everything God has brought me through to bring me to this place. I started thinking about all my dark moments, all my hard nights, all my long days. I started thinking about the pains I've known in the depths of my heart, and the brokenness in my spirit. 

When God writes His name on you, He covers over all of that. His word is like sutures, sewing together the torn places. Holding together the broken ones. When He seals you for His courts, He embraces the whole you, in all of your pieces. His seal is a mark that He takes you, all of you, the good and the bad, the broken and the redeemed, the confident and the questioning. He delivers you out of this muck and into a place where He can have you, all of you, His handiwork and His decree.

And then...in the midst of this profundity of thoughts, I laughed out loud. For a good long while. Maybe you have to be of a bit of the older persuasion to understand this, but the thought that came into my head was simply this:

Here I am - signed, sealed, delivered....I'm Yours.

Isn't that how God is? We are signed by the artist, sealed for His courts, and delivered from this world so that He can have us. So that He can do with us what He intended to do from the very beginning, from the moment He began knitting us together in our mother's womb. So that we could be His. 

And that's the story of how my brain really works.