Melting Point

Our squad leader Aaron Wesley Moore led an insane “team time” for us recently. He gave us all index cards with numbers on the back each having a corresponding name which only he had access to. He shuffled and passed them out leaving the rest to the Lord. We were to all ask God for a word for someone in the room and write it down without a clue of who would get what in the end. Elijah doubted the word he received which ended up in my hands, it read, “You are beautiful. You are [a] voice, a loud voice that cries out the love of God. A voice to be reckoned with, unstoppable. You have so much to proclaim, Proclaim it loudly! Do not be afraid, God will magnify your voice.” 

 

I’ve spent what feels like a lifetime second guessing myself. Everything from what I’ve had to say to nearly every answer I’ve ever had. I’ve questioned my abilities, and even my likes and preferences, at every turn. I can’t count how many times throughout my childhood, teenage years, and even now in my adulthood, I’ve been plagued by uncertainty. So often I’ve thought even my passions are somehow just wrong. Even if I got past the initial uncertainty, it was immediately followed by, “you are incapable, no matter how hard you try.” It makes sense that this lie was recurring. Seeing my ultimate fear has always been giving something, anything, every ounce of effort I have and still failing, miserably. I believe all of these contribute to me mumbling quite often. For those who don’t know I mumble a lot. Sometimes it is because I talk to myself regularly which spills into nearby ears, but truthfully I realize the majority of the time, I am simply subconsciously second guessing whatever it is I have to say. Sometimes, okay many times, I’d discover shortly after it was in fact the right answer. It was in fact a really funny comment, or it was in fact exactly what someone needed to hear.

 

For God to speak directly into this lie through another person, without even my conscious recognition of the lie and what it had grown into, is so fitting to His character…yet I still sit in awe of this exact moment, tears streaming over dried tears. As I read and explained, the word God handed me through my friend Elijah, to my team (as I, you guessed it, cried) my other friend Kara said she’d had scripture and a picture God gave her for me but had been asked to hold onto it until the right moment. She hands me a card with a beautiful valley scene painted inside a giant magnifying glass with a verse painted around the glass: Psalm 34:3 – “Oh MAGNIFY the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!” I flip the card over to two more verses: Isaiah 52:7 – “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “”Your God reigns.”” And Romans 10:14-15 – “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ““How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News!”” 

 

The plot thickens…I’ve battled thinking I’m ugly for many years, somewhat still currently. Me never knowing if the mirror would bring temporary joy or ongoing sadness eventually rolled over to my partial loathing of FaceTime and Sanpchat. It’s like as I grew up it became increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to escape my reflection on the days I wanted to. I even remember in high school and junior high going back into old photo albums and literally deleting pictures of myself I deemed ugly (sorry Mom). The words God spoke to me via Kara and Elijah, brought revelation. It is God and only God, who makes things beautiful, who makes us beautiful. For “…he had no form or majesty that we might look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men…”. Yet God made Jesus beautiful, God made him the name above all names, and God made him the face we all now long to see whether we realize it or not.

 

It’s the same light that is growing inside me, inside all of us who put our faith in Him. There is nothing more beautiful than love in its purest form, true freedom, peace down to the core, perpetual healing, and all of this, everlasting. He has given me a voice made forever lovely, feet made forever beautiful, tears made forever healing, and a song forever buried in my soul to praise Him to the ends of the earth. My confidence truly lies in Him because why on earth would I want it anywhere else? To waver with every haircut and tremble with every Instagram selfie? Not a chance, not anymore. I can’t believe after all this, He even laced it with the confirmation I wanted, not needed, on my call to be a long term missionary. It’s official, my heart is no longer a solid, but a liquid. I have no doubt there’s more to uproot, and I have no doubt it will continue to be tough, but I’m here for it. His praise will forever be on my lips.

 

Love Always,

Jordan Bryce Jost