The enemy of your soul will try everything in his arsenal to destroy, dilute or distract you from God's grand purpose for your life. He'll try to break you and stifle your effectiveness because he knows if you figure out your purpose and take God at His word, you really can change the world. He hopes you never apprehend the truth about being 'fearfully and wonderfully made', because he wants you to believe you aren't and God has nothing for you. Or, he'll try to make you believe God is not what He says and he'll inject doubt and fear to make you submit to his low-down lies.

Because he wants you to stay broken.

To stay bitter, wallowing in self-pity, ineffective and weak, less than what you were created to be...constantly reminding you how bad it is, how broken you are, how helpless and useless your life.

We're all broken somewhere. But in the broken places of our lives lie the beautiful, fearful fragments of purpose. God alone can glue them together anew with a fresh look and a new resolve. He alone can take the shattered and make them sure. He can drive our dream back to the realm of the possible.

We don't know why we suffer and on the surface it seems to make no sense. We think it has something to do with us and it does, kind of. But God allows us to have all sorts of experiences for this primary reason:

He's making us useful in the lives of others.

Allowing us to walk through a similar circumstance so we can offer comfort, healing and hope to bleeding souls. In fact He says as much through Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:4:

“..comforts us in all afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

It's not as much about you and me as we'd like to think. He's not mad and you're not being punished.

You're being educated.

Educated in intimacy-the hardest, most glorious thing. Think about this: the savior of the world, the maker of stars, the Son of the morning, the Dayspring from on high, the Rose of Sharon, and King of Kings-wants intimacy and oneness with you. And with me. Impossibly possible and shockingly wonderful.

He does and the thing is, He wants it only on His terms. And His terms take us to the deep, dark parts of ourselves, the perverted pride, the ugly thoughts, the cruel motives, the frightening tendencies. He dredges them up and lays them out over and over till we're willing to say yes to repentance. Yes to forgiveness. Yes to faith and praise no matter how broken we've been.

Some lessons in intimacy take longer than others. I fought God for years in my season of infertility and desperate desire for another child. I didn't get what He was teaching and I desperately wanted to drop His class! It was hard, it was painful and I hated it!

Because I couldn't see God's why. All I could see was the hole in my heart, the empty place He couldn't fill. The hurt and the hollow. The bleeding need.

He kept teaching and He refused to let me drop the class. He kept at it and together we peeled back the layers and the years and the sorrow. Because He was trying to get me to see just one thing the whole time. It's a really simple lesson. Simple and hard like all lessons in intimacy. And the lesson is this:

He is enough.

That's what I needed to learn and He will do whatever He needs to in order for us to grasp this truth.

Anything in life I think can satisfy more than Him simply can't. He will have nothing less than my whole heart, full of Him and empty of all else including every noisy idol I feel compelled to worship.

Nothing you desire, not the baby, or the relationship, the job, the raise, the position, the husband, the influence or recognition, none of it compares to one real moment in God's presence.

What is He teaching you right now? Do you desperately want to drop the class? I know, I totally get it. But friend, the best thing you will ever have is Him. Whatever good thing you want, no matter how good it seems right now, can never compare because good is always the enemy of the best. He's so much more than you think. Let Him peel back the layers and get to your heart. It's part of the maturing process. We have to go to school before we're useful in the world. We have to learn certain lessons. Hard lessons.

As you allow Him access to your heart and submit to deep teaching, you'll gain intimacy with Him. As He takes you through and you find He comes through, as you gain firsthand knowledge of His faithfulness, you'll hear His heartbeat and He will send you out to bring comfort, healing and hope to other bleeding souls.

Blessings,

Kate Battistelli

This post is part of our series Finding Balance as a Busy Mom.

Please check the series page for all of the posts!