Not long ago, I was sharing an early morning coffee with a beautiful woman when she surprised me with a sincere question, “What would Jesus say to my friend who believes she was born in the wrong body?”
I am not a morning person. So, I took a deep breath before answering. “First, He would tell her she was loved.”
She nodded. I continued, “Then He’d tell her, ‘You’re not a mistake. But I understand your discomfort.’ Then He would explain that this world is not her home and that she’d never feel completely comfortable here because she was made for eternity.” And these words are as true for her as are they are for all of us.
We long for more because we were made for more. We fight sickness, aging, and death because at some level we know we were made for eternal life. As wondrous as our bodies are, they are merely seeds of what they one day will be. Paul explained it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:42–44:
"So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perish- able; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."
Think of it this way: If you’d never seen a tomato or a tomato plant, could you imagine either of them simply by looking at a small, oddly shaped, colorless tomato seed? That seed does not reveal the wonder of what is hidden within it. And yet, given the right environment, that tomato seed will explode with growth in color and flavor. We are the same. In this moment, we are merely seeds waiting for an eternal environment to reveal who we really are. The apostle Paul goes on to say,
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam [ Jesus] became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. (vv. 45–47)
For now, we are dust and seeds, born of earth awaiting our heavenly rebirth. Why would any of us think our present dust-and-seed state would be comfortable when we sense there is so much more waiting within us? We are all in a state of agitated containment. There is the tension of who we are and who we will forever be. The seed of our “more” will not be realized until His appearance.
But our enemy is a liar who twists both the truth and our longings. He whispers, This life is all there will ever be. Be your own god. The enemy has seeded a generation of sons and daughters with the idea that their formation was a mistake. He knows if he can get them to believe this lie, it will be difficult for them to ever trust the one they perceive as a negligent Creator with the weightier measure of their transformation. By twisting the truth, the enemy wants us to doubt the One who is the truth. C. S. Lewis wrote,
“A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers—including even his power to revolt. . . It is like the scent of a flower trying to destroy the flower.”
To understand this Lewis quote in its deepest sense, our role in this statement requires more clarity. We are the creature, not the Creator, and as such, we fall into the category of those who are empowered rather than the One who is all Power. We are the scent, the fragrant vapor of a blossom, not the flower.
This comparison captures the disparity between the One who creates magnificence out of nothingness and those He created. Think of it: without His gift of free will, even rebellion would be impossible. And yet we still revolt and find ourselves blinded to reason. The prophet Isaiah described our frailty this way:
A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:6–8)
The breath of God’s Word cannot fade. In the New Testament, James echoed the brevity of our days:
What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. (James 4:14)
Considering eternity, we are a fleeting fragrance, a scent that disappears only to reappear in eternity. The words of C. S. Lewis reflect the ancient laments of the prophet Isaiah.
You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? (Isa. 29:16)
In so many ways and on so many fronts, our worldview has turned the vantage of the sacred upside down. In these passages Isaiah exposes the breakdown between the created and the Creator. Paraphrased, it might read, “You are the ones in My hands. I am not in yours.” We are His idea. It is time we stop allowing our feeling and self-perception to supersede our divine formation. Prophet Isaiah gives us the remedy for our confused pursuits. Isaiah 2:3
They'll say, "Come, let's climb GOD's Mountain, go to the House of the God of Jacob. He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made." MSG
As we pursue God, Our Father, He reveals us. Not the person we’ve been, not what others say about us, or say we should be, but the real us. The person we are becoming.
Excerpt taken from The Fight for Female. Used with permission.
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Lisa Bevere is an internationally known speaker, a New York Times bestselling author, and host of The Fight for Female podcast. Lisa has been married to her husband, John, for over forty years, and together they have four sons and nine grandchildren. You can connect with Lisa on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X, and LisaBevere.com. Click here for her new book, The Fight for Female.
