Have you ever felt like a misfit? Like an accidentally shrunk good-for-nothing ugly sweater, rejected by its owner and donated to Goodwill?

I have. At one point, I doubted God could ever do anything with the mess my life was in. But that is God’s specialty. God turns misfits into champions.

That’s what he did with the men who followed David. When David first began building his army, 1 Samuel 22 says that the only men who wanted to follow him were the misfits, those in debt and those who were in distress. Imagine being called by God to be the king of Israel and the only people who recognized your calling were the wimps. These men were not Olympic material. These men were a brood of losers!

Well somehow, these wimps became warriors. These misfits are the same men that eventually became David’s famous mighty men. I find it encouraging that God didn't pick the best. Instead, He transformed the worst. How did that happen? The same way he transforms us—through hardships, through struggles, through pain, through facing our issues and refusing to allow misfortune to overcome us.

God takes the least likely to succeed and if we allow him, he transforms our pain into purpose. He takes the misfits and makes them mighty.

That reminds me of a craft project I just finished.

I’ve wanted to make this project for quite awhile, but sometimes a vision has to wait. The inspiration has to proceed the transformation. A couple of years ago I bought a wool sweater at a garage sale for a couple of dollars. I didn’t want to wear the sweater. I wanted to repurpose it. I wanted to make a pillow out of it. When I saw the sweater lying in a pile of unwanted clothing, I didn’t see a misfit, I envisioned the finished product—a beautiful sweater pillow like one I had seen at Pottery Barn.

But first, I knew I would need to shrink the sweater.

Shrink a perfectly good wool sweater on purpose? Yes!

If you’ve ever washed and dried a wool sweater you know it ends up a fraction of its former size. But there’s an amazing feel to shrunk felted wool. The texture is phenomenal. It’s dense and course. It’s tough and thick. It’s been through the heat and it has come out refined and more beautiful than ever.

Repurposing this sweater reminds me of a dear friend who is going through a really tough time. God is healing some major issues in her life. Let’s just call her Amanda. Amanda feels like a rejected shrunk sweater, a fraction of her former size. But God’s specialty is redesigning lives. He takes the pain, the misery, the brokenness and refashions it all into something far better.

Of course, like Amanda is experiencing, we all have to go through some stuff to get onto the better. The process of getting smaller so God can use us bigger is not fun, but the finished product is beautiful.

So if you feel like a misfit, if you feel like you’re going through the wringer and getting squeezed, remember…God can use you better smaller. Just like he did with David’s mighty men, he takes the misfits and makes them mighty! And when he is through with you, you’ll be the inspiration for a whole new project.

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Earlier this month John told me he was ditching his plans to write a New Year’s resolution.

I couldn’t believe my ears. My man of no-compromise was bowing out of the game. “What’s up with that?” I asked.

“Resolutions only last a month or so,” he sighed. “What I really need is a New Year’s revelation!”

What a powerful thought.

A few days ago while watching the trailer for the movie, New Year’s Eve, a comment in the middle of the preview stunned him: “A resolution can become a revelation.”

What an awesome validation.

The reality is that 100 percent of people who make resolutions intend to keep them, but the facts are that 80 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions will eventually break them. Most won’t even make it until the end of January. So how can we make them stick?

Many of us will resolve to lose weight, eat healthier, get out of debt and spend more time with our families. One of my friends resolved last year to go on a man-ban. No dating for an entire year. She lasted two months. She was serious, but she needed more than her own strength. Another friend resolved to lose 30 pounds. Instead, she gave up after she put on ten more. Like so many do, my friends made New Year’s resolutions, but they ultimately gave up. Why do so many break our resolutions? We have the desire, we have the goal and we’ve even written it down, which is supposedly the magical requirement for obtaining our goals. What are we missing?

Listen to what the book of Proverbs says: Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint (Proverbs 29:18 NIV).

The NLT puts it this way: When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild.

The NASB says this: Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained.

Whether it’s the lack of revelation, divine guidance or vision, here’s the bottom line: In order to achieve a human goal, we need divine direction.

When temptation taunts our own ideas, temptation usually wins. When a vision is God’s idea, however, the revelation empowers us to maintain our focus.

When John and I started dating, we knew nothing about God’s plan for relationships. By the time he had proposed, we were buried in the standards of the world. I knew we weren’t supposed to be sleeping together, but my resolve wasn’t strong enough to overcome the temptation. After all, everyone else was having sex.

But then I had a revelation.

One day the Lord spoke firmly to me. “Christy, I have a gift to give you and John, but the only way you can receive it is through abstinence.”

All of my life, I had heard the “no-sex-until-marriage” rule. But that’s all it was—a rule. A “should not”. A mustn’t. But for the first time, God was adding revelation, divine guidance and vision to strengthen my resolve. And best of all, there was a prize for compliance. I had never heard that before. All of a sudden my human efforts had reinforcements! I had never felt so empowered to practice restraint. Previously, my own willpower had always failed. But with the revelation of heaven, the last eight months of our courtship were spent building and strengthening our spiritual and emotional relationship, not our physical relationship. I wanted that prize!

On January 1, 1999, we got the gift. Now 13 years later, that same revelation continues to empower our resolve. Even though we can have all the sex we want now, the strength we gained from exercising restraint during our courtship strengthened our resolve to follow God’s standards when other types of challenges came after we got married. Just because we’re married doesn’t mean we no longer need to abstain from temptation. It’s just that the temptations are different. After marriage, we need to abstain from the temptation to criticize, blame, argue and take offense.

So what about you? What do you need a revelation for? What things do you hope to achieve this year? As you begin reflecting on your plans for 2012, let me encourage you to pray about them and write them down, but most importantly—ask the Lord for a revelation to strengthen your will power. A resolution that sticks is one that adds divine vision to human strength. Don’t be one of the 80 percent that give up before the month’s end. If you keep the vision of heaven, you will succeed!

Our pastor has been preaching a series this month entitled “A Dysfunctional Family Christmas”. “If you have a crazy family member, raise your hand,” he instructed from the pulpit on Sunday. Looking around I noticed that most everyone raised their hand. Some people raised both. “Now for those of you that didn’t raise your hand,” he continued, “guess what? The crazy family member—it’s you!”

All of our families have issues. We can hide them, deny them or ignore them, but like the extra rolls of fat squashed in by our spandex and Spanx, at some point, our family issues are going to roll out and expose themselves.

The holidays seem to bring out the crazies. Christmas is a time when our hope for family peace is the strongest, but nothing draws the dross to the top faster than an entire family together in one room.

Nonetheless, if you’re like me, you still maintain Christmas card visions of family unity and peace around the holidays. My vision of a perfect family Christmas is everyone singing Christmas carols gathered around the baby grand. I can tell you, however, that has never happened. For one thing, most of our family can’t even hum on key, and the only keyboard we own is made by Dell.

The truth is, if we expect this Christmas to be picture perfect we’re headed for disappointment. Despite the craziness that comes when family members are strangled by darkness, there is hope. Even when they appear oblivious to sin’s grasp, the Bible says they can’t escape His spirit. Here’s what I read in Psalms today:

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there (Psalms 139:7-8).

I wonder if this scripture is where we get our saying, “You made your bed, now lie in it!” But isn’t God’s grace crazy? Even when we feel exasperated and feel like forsaking them, God won’t. When they make their bed in the depths of darkness, He is there! If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you (vs 11-12).

If you have family members oblivious to sin and walking in darkness, don’t lose heart! He loves those who linger in darkness. He loves those who are blind to the sins they embrace. God’s crazy grace hangs out with the drug addict and alcoholic. He hangs out with the adulterer and agnostic. He loves those embracing alternative lifestyles. He is even with them in their darkness, for the darkness is as light to Him!

He’s head-over-heels crazy about them even when they completely ignore His commands. He loves to hang out with them. He can’t get enough of them. In fact, He knows them so well that He knows what they’re going to say before they say it. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord (Psalm 139:4).

No matter how crazy our family members are, God’s grace is never-ending. God isn’t crazy, but His grace is! He loves us…the good, the bad and the ugly! So as you prepare to gather around your family this Christmas, ask Him for an extra helping of His grace. Do it now before you forget. His crazy grace will empower you ignore the imperfect, love the unlovable and reach the unreachable.

Prayer: Dear Lord, as we gather this week to celebrate your birth, help me to embrace your crazy grace. Empower me to love my family members where they are right now. Give me the grace to overlook the obvious, love the unlovable and accept the unacceptable. May I demonstrate Your grace to those who need it most. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

In his book, Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby writes, “What you believe about God will determine what you do and how you live.” What do you believe about God? Do you believe He is able to kill your giants? If you were a little shepherd boy faced with Goliath, would you have worn King Saul’s armor or would you have had the faith to believe that God would enable you to defeat the giant with what was in your hand?

What is your giant?       What is in your hand?

When my two young boys were in a car wreck in 1998, I was faced with the biggest giant of my life. Could I forgive my ex-husband for driving under the influence of several narcotics? Could I forgive him for being responsible for the death of our youngest son, Jake? Could I forgive him for putting our other son, Garrett, in Children’s Hospital with multiple injuries?

I don’t think I had any choice.

When David was faced with the giant, listen to his words: “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

I wasn’t a shepherd boy, but I had experience fighting things that threatened to take my life. For the ten years prior to the accident, the Lord delivered me from the paw of oppression and abuse. I had to believe that He would also deliver me from the hand of the giant of grief. Otherwise, the giant would kill me instead.

Most people fight giants with the armor of this world. The world’s response to tragedy and injustice is often revenge and justified anger.

When David went to fight the giant, Saul gave him his armor, but it weighed too much for David. He couldn’t move around in it. Instead, he chose to use what was familiar to him. His weapons were different. He used five smooth stones.

Likewise, the weapons of this world were too heavy for me. I couldn’t move around in bitterness and the world’s justice. Instead, I picked up God’s weapons to fight my giant—5 smooth stones to hit the enemy between the eyes and knock him down to the ground. It doesn’t sound very ladylike, but then—I chopped his big ole ugly head off!

Here are my five smooth stones:

• Greater is He is me than he that is in the world.
• He that dwells in the secret place will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. He shall command His angels concerning me to guard me in all of my ways. No weapon formed against me shall prosper.
• God makes all things work together for His good.
• His grace is sufficient. His power is perfected in our weakness.
• He gives me a garment of praise for a spirit of despair.

You don’t need the weapons of this world. God’s word is more powerful than a two-edged sword. Get out your five smooth stones and get ready to cut off your giant’s head!

Would you please do me a big prayer favor? My ex-husband is back in the hospital. He needs a revelation that God’s power and grace is sufficient for him as well. The best ending to this story would be to see Bob set free from the giant of addiction and false beliefs of failure that have consumed his life. Would you pray that Bob's life would be radically transformed by not just the head knowledge of God’s power, but the transforming power of God manifest in his life through complete deliverance? I’d love to have a multitude witness the miracle of God restoring his life. It’s never too late!