“For you have heard of my former conduct…” (Galatians 1:13)

“But when it pleased God, who separated me from me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace…” (Galatians 1:15)

 His Wonderful Workmanship

Paul must have been amazed at his own description of who he was in the book of Galatians. I am no less amazed to find myself as I am this day. Paul goes on to describe his former life—murderer, zealous, religious, and a persecutor of the very things he now holds dear. God had transformed him completely until he became Paul, an apostle.

I remember a time in high school when I so desperately wanted to be accepted and always seemed to be just a step behind, invisible in the crowd, and never quite measuring up to the cool kids I so envied. A friend and I were talking and she asked me point blank about my “faith.” (I really didn’t have much at that time.)

She said, “You don’t really believe all that stuff, do you?”

I quickly responded, “No, not really.” Actually those words may have been truer than I knew at the time. As soon as they were out of my mouth, however, my heart skipped a beat, my mind froze, and something within me groaned. I knew I had just betrayed something central and precious within. I regretted those words at once.

As the years passed, I lived life on my own terms. I lived at times as though I had absolutely no sense at all and when I crashed on the rocks of my own stupidity, Jesus was there to rescue me. It seemed that the Jesus I had not believed in as a teenager still believed in me. He met me at a point of desperation and changed everything. I am not that frightened young woman anymore. He has made of me a woman I could have never imagined.

Until I at last saw Him for who He truly was, I never knew who I was.

As I look back on my former life, I too am amazed. Nothing in my past hinted at the things to come—the things God would do. He has revolutionized my life. He has changed me forever and made of me (and is yet making of me) a new creation through Jesus Christ and God the Father. I am His workmanship. For this I am forever grateful.

Do you know who you are? Do you see yourself through His eyes? If you are in a desperate place, a depressing place, a place of shame or fear, you don’t have to remain in that state. Call out to the God who loves you right where you are. Get to know His grace, mercy, kindness, compassion, wisdom and never-failing love for you. It’s going to get better. It’s going to get beautiful! What He did in Paul’s life, what He did in my life, He is waiting and willing to do in your life as well.

Father, thank You for who You are and thank You for the holy work You do within us to change us from glory to glory into the image of Your Son. Amen.