Sweet Redemption

When I was growing up, every year my elementary school hosted a fall festival. It was a big PTO fundraiser and it was the highlight of the school year. There were games, food, a bouncy house, cotton candy machines, the famous cake walk, a haunted house and the annual school auction. 

But the greatest part of the entire fall festival was the redemption center. It was the epicenter of the entire fall festival experience. The redemption center was the place we could trade in our paper tickets, which were earned by playing games, for something bigger, better, and way more exciting! Anywhere else, these tickets had no value. But in the redemption center: their value was worth gold!

Recently I’ve been thinking about this in relation to what God wants to offer us. 

He wants us to bring our life tickets into his redemption center. Our experiences, our failures, our disappointments, our brokenness. He wants us to bring all of our burdens, our shame, our guilt and fears to Him so that He can trade them in for us. He takes what feels worthless, useless, value-less, and wants to offer us something more!

What a beautiful picture of redemption this is! 

This invitation isn’t just for me, it’s for you. But the choice is ours. Do we want to hang onto the worthless tickets of life and sit in the comfort of our disappointment, or will we choose to step into His redemption center and allow him to transform our hearts, with the expectation of something bigger, better and way more exciting? 

Tami