Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. -2 Corinthians 4:16 (NIV)

The year was 1995. In the span of a few months, two injuries happened to me while on the freeway: an intentionally thrown chunk of concrete smashed through my windshield into my head, and I was sideswiped on another occasion, injuring my left knee.

I got off easy, with occasional memory issues and a limp. But God had better plans for me than to die back then. The real smashing would happen 18 years later, at the age of 40. That’s when God began demolishing me from the inside…in a good way.

When my eyes of my heart were opened to Jesus in 2013, the lights were switched on. Guilt, pride, shame, rage, resentment, confusion, and more were no longer hiding like cockroaches under cover of darkness. In came God’s wrecking ball, to smash their hold on my heart and soul.

When you’ve finally reached the point of brokenness to let in His wrecking ball, watch how He smashes your chains of sin, fills you with His Holy Spirit to help you sweep away the rest of the debris over your lifetime, and power you from within to take on life like you never could before.

God will set you apart to wreck you, rebuilding and girding you to His glory. You’ll never want to return to the ruins of your old self. God is so, so good.

Today’s soundtrack

Sidewalk Prophets’ “Wrecking Ball” tells God we need Him to destroy the remnants of our old selves to make way for the new.

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. -Hebrews 10:10 (ESV)

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. -Matthew 7:14 (NIV)

If you’ve ever felt like the black sheep in your group, whether its family or otherwise, I want to share with you what I’ve learned about that over the last three days.

As readers of this blog know, the posts here chronicle my relatively new journey with Christ, and what He teaches me along the way. I hope that my testimony can help even one reader to have hope in their journey.

I write this post after a grueling three-day Buddhist funeral ceremony for my father. The final rites took place with me being present for my family, but not worshiping at either Buddhist shrine (to Buddha or my father). After that ceremony, we followed the monks to the on-site cremation area, where they loaded my father’s casket into the furnace, and I switched it on.

Thoughout this final day, I was keenly aware of some looks and whispers as I stood or sat apart from my family during the rites. Even right down to the final moments at the cremation furnace, my immediate and extended family were weeping and lying prostrate before the furnace while I stood up. A mourner to my left looked at me for a few seconds, then looked away.

By this third day, however, God had forged a backbone for me beneath the full armor of God, so I could stand more and more heat and pressure. And that is a strength He gives us every time we resist the temptation to give in to something that is not God-honoring.

As the black sheep in my family, I’ve always tended to zig when expected to zag, and following Christ was the ultimate defining decision that set me apart, breaking the centuries-long chain of unbelievers in my family.

I mentioned earlier that I was set apart from my family members and every worshiping mourner there. As Christ followers, we are specifically set apart–sanctified–by God for His holy purposes. We are under His protection, with the ultimate shepherd to lead us.

So if you are the black sheep, know that all believers are considered black sheep to the world, under His protection…and the ones who will make it through His narrow gate into Heaven. Rejoice in being different!

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. -Philippians 1:6 (NLT)

Sometimes people promise that, if we follow Christ, God will make life cushy for us. Only good things will come our way. (Translation: Only what we humans think are good things will come our way.) Beware such promises.

Scripture is filled with stories and lessons through people’s lives that show that, when we follow God, the heat will come.

Look at Joseph, who unswervingly followed God, and was taken on a roller coaster life. He was betrayed, abandoned by his own family, wrongly accused, and also rose to great power in the face of all those things.

Look at Job, whose life was rocked when God allowed Satan to strip away all of what he loved and held dear in this world: friends, family, children, belongings.

Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) became a mighty champion for Christ after persecuting so many early Christians. He died in prison.

John the Baptist, after just a year of powerful public ministry, was beheaded. Upon hearing of John’s death, Jesus went away on his own to grieve.

All of them focused on the Lord through all of their trials, counting it all joy. Jesus tells us that this world will bring us tribulation, but to take heart, because He has overcome this world (John 16:33). And God carried them all through their hardships in this world, and through to the next with Him.

While we’re here on earth, the heat will come through external and internal challenges. Our internal challenges are the old flesh habits we battle, but when God lets the heat get cranked up, He can purify us by boiling off what is unclean and ungodly in us. Needless to say, this can take a lifetime in us!

But much like with smelting, the separation of impurities due to such extreme heat glorifies God, because we live in greater and greater obedience to Him as the vestiges our our old selves are burned away. And as more and more of ourselves is burned away, we are made more and more into the image of Christ…ever more to His glory, and ever more reflecting His light for others to see.

And yes, ever more attracting more heat, and more trials, to continue to the process.

Thank you, Lord, for loving us enough to purify us through trials and hardships. Please help us to recognize Your continuing work in us out of Your love, and to help us glorify You in our walk.