Remove the Veil.

So throughout the beginning of this year, God has really been revealing to me the word peace, which has been really sweet but until today I didn’t recognize the magnitude of which He was working. A few days back, my sweet leader and friend Catie gave a talk at College Life (young life for college kids) and she talked about the seemingly inevitable and unavoidable presence of worry in life- especially for college kids. Contradicting this claim, the ideology of having less truly does allow a deeper, fuller and more meaningful life, although difficult, can lead to truth, when God is guiding us in what to add and what to cut out of our lives. This can be confirmed in God’s promises to us in Matthew 6:

““Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

HE IS SO GOOD Y’ALL!!

Anyway, I love this passage because I am one heck of a control freak, consumes way too frequently by my plans, and by the opinions of others, constantly trying to maintain whatever “image” I create. Although often, it is not a bad one, it can often be the image of being a “good Christian” or good young life leader or student or whatever else; which are not bad things. It is not bad to try to be more like Jesus and follow His call on our hearts but it is wrong to project our views and ideas of what all that looks like unto God- solely hoping for the approval of this world. I was once told, “We are not called to compare ourselves to this world nor to other Christians but to scripture and Jesus.” This is insanely hard to do, especially for me, as I said, I am a control freak (the strangest part about that is I am a control freak but at the same time, extremely go-with-the-flow and “chill” so most people would never know the truth) but my world was rocked and lens switched when my sweet friend’s dad showed us Second Corinthians 3:17:

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM.”

So, until today the connection between these two scriptures never really occurred to me, because just saying, do not worry… and God is freedom were not necessarily connected. UNTIL, I was reading through all of 2 Corinthians 3 and in context it talks about the veil of Moses and that the veil could not have been fully removed until Jesus- I saw it. That wretched veil contained; worry, anxiety, fear and shame, all of which died with Jesus on the cross. Therefore, the Spirit of the Lord does not allow those evils, God is so much greater, so much more powerful that when we trust in Him, everything that is not of him will dissipate.

I am not saying that this life is perfect, nor am I saying everything will suddenly be sunshine and rainbows but I do believe that when we lay all of those things at the foot of the cross and trust with all our hearts that Jesus WILL take them- He will.

Peace is defined as the freedom from disturbance. The definition of the word that has been heavy laiden upon my heart contains the word/ part of the verse that began my year. God will sustain us, He is greater than any fear, anxiety or worry that the enemy tries to feed us because in His presence, there is true, genuine peace and freedom. Take heart and dive into this idea, that worry does not have to consume and drive our lives but instead, the Prince of Peace, the Father and Creator of everything has our back and is running after our hearts zealous with love and adoration. All He wants is all of us and all we need is all of Him because we are His children whom find freedom from the veil of worry, shame and fear in the midst of His presence.