Unstickable - Psalm 36:7

My Ty has a major dislike of stickers.  He also doesn't like stamps, vests, jackets or the nametags they attach to his shirt at Sunday School.  I'm not sure what the issue is.  He even had a tough time with the wrist band required to go through the corn maze at the apple orchard a few weeks ago.  My little guy doesn't like to be branded.  He doesn't necessarily want to go along with the crowd.  Telling him that "everyone else has on their Cubbies vest" does nothing to convince my little rebel that he too, should don his little blue vest with the patches.  He doesn't even like sticky hands.  After eating Honey Nut Cheerios, he goes straight over to the container of wipes and cleans up.  He doesn't want to be sticky.

 

 

God doesn't want us to be sticky either.  He doesn't want us to accept the world's branding.  He doesn't want us to go along with the crowd.  Maybe Ty is on to something, here.

 

I have read the passage in Philippians 4 on contentment numerous times and always came away a little confused.  Paul talks about how he has learned “the secret” of being content in all circumstances, but I really didn’t get what the secret was.  I kind of felt like he left me hanging.  Where was the secret formula?  I wanted a 12 step process.  A task list I could check off and declare I “got it.”  I appreciated the verses and his point of view, but I couldn’t figure out how I could also get there. 
 

I’ve been doing a bible study at home called A Confident Heart and it’s been all up in my business.  I come across as a pretty confident person, but in my recent floundering with job and purpose, I have been feeling very lost.  If I’m not an executive assistant, fixing everything at work, then where is my value?  If I’m not a runner accomplishing weekly long runs, then where is my value?  If I’m not head of a committee at Braden’s school, then where is my value?  If I don’t have everything figured out in my marriage and our finances, then where is my value?  It’s very daunting when God reveals that all of your self-worth has been wrapped up in accomplishments and performance and then He peels all that back.  You end up very exposed.  He has showed me a ton during this Bible Study so far and it’s been tough.  It’s also been very freeing.  Kind of like cleaning out my clothes closet of unused items, items with a negative connotation, and items that stare back at me and tell me I'm not the right size to wear them, I am holding items in my heart up to God and asking if they are worth me holding on to, or am I just trying to please others?  When Ty comes downstairs fully dressed for church without me having to ask him, and he is wearing a superman T-shirt and I wince; am I really concerned that God cares about him not wearing a collared shirt, or am I really just afraid others will think I'm not being a good Mom because my kid is not dressed "right" for church?

 

I’m not sure if you are familiar with the Max Lucado book about the wooden people and the stickers.  The lived in a world where you either got star stickers or gray dot stickers stuck on you.  Star stickers if people thought you were good, or did good things, and gray dot stickers if they didn’t.  This one wooden guy kept striving for star stickers but always received gray dot stickers instead.  After being covered in them for so long, he felt worthless and sad.  Then he met a girl who didn’t have any stickers and asked her how that could be.  She introduced him to their Maker.  The one who hand crafted them and loved everything about them.  It ended up that the more time the wooden boy spent with his Maker, and the more he learned how his Maker loved him and cared for him, the more stickers fell off him.  The stickers no longer mattered and if they didn’t matter to him, they didn’t stick.  He became unstickable.

 

What a wonderful story!  I recognize that sometimes when I go on Facebook or other blogs and see the list of accomplishments, activities, and stuff that others have or are doing and I don’t or aren’t doing, I feel the gray dot stickers taking their place on my heart.  I realize that I keep trying to impress my Maker with accomplishments and performance hoping He will give me a bunch of star stickers.  But I've missed the point.  It’s not about the star stickers at all.  The stickers don’t matter.  What matters is our Maker’s love for us, for who we are.  How he pursues us just as he made us.  How he isn’t impressed with our accomplishments.  He just wants us to spend time with him and begin to see ourselves as HE sees us.

 

That is the secret that has alluded me in Philippians.  It’s the relationship, not the task list checked off.  God has given me Psalm 36:7 to meditate on this week. 

 

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!  People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

 

It’s about the recognition of what I’m trying to fill up my heart with, and the realization that only God can fill it .  And when I get rid of the clutter and allow the living water to fill the wells of my heart, all those stickers flitter to the ground and I too, am unstickable.

Blog hopping with Proverbs 31 today.