Monday, November 17, 2014

Clothe Yourself

By the title, you might think I'm gonna rant about the skimpiness of what people wear.  Nope. 

This morning, the verse in my Bible study was this:

"Therefore, as God's chosen people,
holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourselves with
compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness,
and patience."
Colossians 3:12

I've seen this verse many times, but the word picture stopped me in my tracks today. 

I envisioned a closet and all sorts of dresses, shirts, pants, skirts--and don't get me started on the amount of shoes and other accessories I envisioned...  All for me.  All chosen and waiting just for me--no sharing with my daughters allowed.

For those of you who are moms, do you remember when your child started wanting to choose her own clothes?  Do you remember telling her that you bought those  red-stripped leggings to go with a cute red top--not the hot pink one with stripes she thought she needed to wear that day?  Do you remember how you let her wear it anyway.  And then made sure your own clothes matched so people didn't think you were colorblind? 

I can just picture God furnishing our closet with all of these clothes: compassion, kindness, gentleness, humility, patience.  But, we like to shop for ourselves,  and sometimes anger, jealousy, bitterness, pride, unforgiveness and impatience make their way in amongst the others.

So we pull out mis-matched clothes and try to wear them.  But like a navy shoe with a pair of black pants, it just doesn't work.  They don't go together.  But, like us with our children, God doesn't force us to wear His stuff.  He puts them in there for us.  And makes sure they are clean  and ready to wear.  But we have to put them on.  He gives us that choice. 

This made me think twice about the way I got dressed this morning.  And because I am not just loved, but DEARLY  loved, I counted my blessings to have those items available for me to wear from such a compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient God.