Hot Messes of the Bible

People say that dogs take on the personality of their owner. Well, that must be why my dog is such a hot mess. JK, she’s perfect. But, I am a hot mess. Yo soy un diastre. (There’s no direct translation. I think that says something about our culture.) Sometimes I fall asleep with Cheetoh fingers. Sometimes I sleep through Bible study. Sometimes I offend my mom. Even as I write this, I’m rewearing yesterday’s clothes, complaining about kids these days, and eating donuts dipped in Dr. Pepper. I’m a hot mess. Praise the Lord that He is growing in me.

I’ve been reading the OT. Well, I’ve really been listening to the Bible while I walk Effie. I highly recommend this if you are having a hard time getting past, “In the beginning”. You would not believe the amount of idle time we have that can be easily spent listening to the only pure thing in the world. So stop listening to gerbil chirps and the hip hoppedy tunes, and listen to the sweet sound of God’s word! Listening to the Bible has got me thinking about all the disordered people in the Bible. For real, the children of Israel ARE THE WORST. They drive me crazyyyyy because they are a picture of US.

We are all hot messes because frankly, we all have sinful natures and are imperfect. The only one who was not a hot mess was Jesus and He was THE perfect man—a Godman! But the good news is that the Lord loves hot messes. Seriously.

Let’s get to it. These are the two hot messes from the OT that spoke to me the most, but trust me there are plenty more.

Jacob

Jacob said, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been preserved. (Gen 32:30)

In Genesis 32:22-32, Jacob was just being a crazy person. Jacob is such a hot mess. He LITERALLY wrestled with God. Who does that?! Oh, wait. WE DO. We wrestle with God daily and often. We think we can rely on our natural strength but we cannot! We’re like Oh, don’t worry God, I got this! Yeah, right. We need God to be our strength because we can’t do life without Him. We are weak sauce. God is like Chick-Fil-A sauce. God dealt with Jacob’s natural strength and that was the start of Jacob’s transformation. We must deny our natural life and strength and rely on Him so we can be transformed and He can grow in our mind, emotion, and will.

Rahab the prostitute

Rahab said to the two spies,

I know that Jehovah has given you the land….When we heard, our hearts melted; and there no longer remained any spirit in any man because of you; for Jehovah your God, He is God in heaven above and upon earth beneath. (Josh 2:9, 11)

In Joshua 2, we see Rahab the prostitute. Whenever she is mentioned in the OT, she is called Rahab the prostitute. Can you imagine if we all had names with our main sin attached? But she believed in God and trusted in Him and His people. She risked her life and her family’s life to protect His people. The cool thing is she is no longer referred to as Rahab the prostitute in the Matthew 1 as an ancestor of Christ. Her past sins and former identity were dropped when she had faith in the Lord.

Give the Lord permission to remodel you

To lessen your hot messness, we must give things to the Lord or consecrate things to Him. When we give things to the Lord, we allow Him to touch and grow in us. By consecrating things to the Lord we allow Him to work on those things in our soul (emotion, mind, will).

For it is God who works in you to will and act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil 2:13)

The Lord is so sweet when He works in us because He does it slowly, and according to what we can handle. He will meet you where you are. Many people compare it to redecorating. Our soul is a house that is outdated and desperately needs redecorating; the room has neon floral wallpaper and the carpets are so 1994. But the Lord isn’t going to gut the house— we would not be able to handle that. He does it slowly and over time, and He needs our permission. We have to grant Him access to the whole house; it would be pretty rude if we just left Him stuck in the family room! But He isn’t going to break in and tear it up. He will wait in the family room until you allow Him into the kitchen. Slowly, the Lord will transform us and make our messed up heart His beautiful home.

That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith. (Eph 3:17)

I will beautify the house of My beauty. (Isa 60:7)

He will do it! If we continue to give things to the Lord He will continue to make us more according to His heart’s desire. I would rather be a hot mess in the Lord than have it all together without Him. And the Lord is going to work in you! The more the Lord grows in you, the more you will become like Him. Examining all the hot messes in the Bible has inspired me and gives me hope. It is comforting to know that I don’t have to fight my “hot messness” alone. And the fact that you’re reading this blog and part of CSOC makes you way less of a hot mess. You honestly have it way more together than most people because YOU LOVE THE LORD! That is not a small thing!

Speaking for myself, the Lord has been working in me a lot lately and I can totally feel it! At the spring 2016 College Conference, someone gave a message on consecration and it jumpstarted a lot of spiritual growth and enjoyment in me. (Sidebar: GO TO THE COLLEGE CONFERENCE.) Anything I was frustrated with in myself I gave to the Lord. I was just like Jacob; I thought I could eat healthy by myself or have less anxiety through my own strength. DUMBBB. I can’t do anything with my natural strength. When we start to give things to the Lord and have faith, like Rahab, He will take care of them. He will do it! We are never going to grow in the Lord without Him, and we are never going to leave the things of the world behind without Him. The main thing I gave Him was my obsession with television. All day and all night I would binge ALL the shows. I wasn’t reading the Bible and all I wanted to do was watch TV with Effie snuggled next to me. But after I gave it to the Lord, the desire to watch TV all day long has slowly dissipated. I still like television, but now I feel very “meh” about spending time vegging out. I would much rather go to Bible study or spend some time with the Lord after a hard day. All the things I consecrated I wrote on a notecard with the date and all the details. I can’t wait to look back at that notecard 10 years from now. Anyway, it will be so sweet to see how much the Lord has grown in that part of me, and how He has moved the furniture around. It’s so sweet that the Lord wants to grow in us. I mean, who are we? We are hot messes. But that is how big His heart for us is.

By: Kolean Gudalj