owned

“There’s a piece of tape on your back.” That is what the little girl said to me during TREEHOUSE yesterday morning. Apparently, sometime during the course of the morning, one of our youth thought to put a label on my back with a word on it. I had no idea he had done that, nor what it said. However, once TREEHOUSE was over, there was a little girl kind enough to enlighten me to the prank.
I had had a really tough week. Circumstances and people were sucking life out of me and I felt pulled in many directions and a failure at most of it. I was discouraged and hurt, tired and ready to just say enough. However, the Spiritual disciplines of my life had kicked in and I was pushing through-but only just doing the “deal”. I was a little better by Sunday, but had asked the Lord to make Himself evident in the course of the morning, to just speak and remind ME of what He had done and to affirm a journey that I had been on.
So, when I pulled the tape off my shirt, I had no idea it was God’s way of marking me for the day-that is until I read what it said.
OWNED.
I am sure the teenager was being funny, but in essence He was God’s hand on my back. In an instance, He reached down and marked me. I didn’t even know it. But as I sat on the edge of the stage looking at this label…the Lord whispered…in that beautiful way that He does. “you are mine. I have directed your steps. I have called you my own. No one else gets to determine your course.” The words to Isaiah 43 ran through my mind. You are precious, beloved, called, honored and I love you. I formed you. I made you and you were created for my glory. You are mine. Do not fear, I am with you. You are OWNED.
Then, I remembered the lesson the Lord had taught me months ago. He is my Kurios. My Lord, My master. The one to whom I belong. I am HIS beloved and He is mine. I am OWNED. I am not my own, but His. And those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, but He also pursues. He guides, speaks and doesn’t let wander, but instead instructs with His Spirit.
I hung my head and looked at what was meant to be a prank, but became God’s Word to me. I am OWNED. I belong to someone. And only the one to whom I belong gets to have me. And He will not lead me in a path that is wrong, but will lead me in paths of righteousness and truth.
I smiled and took that label and proudly put it back on the front of my shirt, unashamed of the fact that I am not my own, but OWNED by Him. And that HE determines every step.
In a world, where many others want to determine your steps, I can rest in the fact that I belong to HIM.

Isa 43:1 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!

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