Beneath Burlap: How to be Undone to be Redone
A glance in the direction of our front door as I was pulling into the driveway gave me pause. The teal-tinted burlap I’d just months previous pushed, pulled, and re-adjusted a few too many times was looking a bit yellow. Later that day, I took a closer look. Sure enough, the sun, which had begun to disintegrate the previous, natural burlap, was already fading the tinted burlap. And here, buried in the layers of burlap, was a lesson for the finding: to create room for what will be, what is needs to be pulled away. To move forward afresh and renewed, we must let the layers unravel. To be redone we must first be undone.
If you’ve never DIYed a burlap wreath, it’s surprisingly easy to push looped layers through a metal wreath frame. But it does take a little time, especially if you are trying to stretch barely-enough burlap as I was the last time I redid our wreath. The loops were too big in some places, too small in others, and I was coming to the end of the burlap but not the end of the circle of frame. So adjust I did, over and over, evening out my loops, using every spare inch of burlap. Yet before I could begin to craft a fresh wreath, I had to first remove the burlap discolored and disintegrating from full-on sun.
The undoing comes before the redoing.
It’s true of a wreath, and it’s true too of me—that I must be willing to be undone before I can be made new.
Just be real
In God’s hands the pieces of our lives are like a burlap wreath. To let the old burlap be removed is to welcome the exposure, to invite the uprooting, to willingly be laid bare.
It is here, in the undoing, that we learn to be real. To offer God access to our frayed, sun-rotted threads, to surrender to his gentle pulling away of the things that do not reflect his heart.
He already knows us through and through, but as we surrender to his gaze, we begin to heal. Truth can saturate, bind together, create beauty from our broken. For truth to be deep-set within our heart, we must walk the path of vulnerability. We must, in his loving hands, be undone.
I treasure the words in Psalm 51:6, which reads,
I know that you delight to set your truth deep in my spirit.
So come into the hidden places of my heart
and teach me wisdom.
It reminds me that wisdom is available to me but it’s contingent on me welcoming God into the hidden places of my heart. Choosing the path of the raw and real—pressing into the process of being undone—is the way find wisdom and wholeness.
There is no neutral
There is no neutral. I turn the words round slowly, willing myself to understand. A wreath is in either a state of being remade or slowly deteriorating. There is forward momentum or a backwards retreat. It cannot stay in the middle, unaltered.
Similarly, we are either becoming more like Christ, or we are pulling back from Him. Our retreat may not be intentional, and but unless we are pursuing Jesus, we will eventually realize that where we are is not where we were.
Like burlap, we change with the passing of time. But what we are changing into is for us to decide.
Are we willing to be redone, again and over again, so the changes cause us to know truth, to know God’s heart, to become more like Him?
“Dependency—it’s gonna set you free,” sings Lauren Alexandria in a worship session from IHOP I’ve been playing on repeat. And I know it’s true—dependency on Christ, being given wholeheartedly to the surrender, is the best way to live.
Burlap doesn’t resist the working of my hands. So too do I intention to not resist the working of God’s hands, even when He pulls away the old so the new can be formed. I lean into being undone because there is no neutral.
The push/pull creates beauty
An empty wreath frame is a blank canvas for something beautiful to emerge. As the burlap is repetitively pushed and pulled through the frame, it begins to take on a new form.
Sometimes the work of God inside us feels a bit like the push/pull motion that creates a wreath. It might feel uncomfortable to be vulnerable, to welcome the deep heart-work needed for us to look more like Him. But just as a wreath can’t be created if the burlap is left untouched, neither can God form something new in us without us surrendering to the working of His hands. Once the old has fallen away, and we are bare-souled and humbly expectant, then, only then, can He form something new.
The lesson of the wreath points to givenness—giving myself wholly and full of trust to the One who holds me. My surrender gives God access to the deepest places in my heart—access to the broken and not-like Him things, access too to the good things so they can be replaced with the best things.
“I delight to fulfill your will, my God, I read in Psalm 40:8 TPT, “for your living words are written upon the pages of my heart.” And this—this is what my heart desires—for the new burlap forming a new wreath to be simply Him. I want to find His will, His mission, a delight. I want His words of life to be etched a mile deep into my heart.
A missional life is one lived in response to the work God is doing inside us. It’s welcoming the undoing so as we are redone in Christ’s likeness, we carry His fragrance everywhere we go. It’s welcoming God’s work inside, knowing that what’s inside ripples out beyond us when we invite others in close enough to truly know us.
When the path through the messy parts of our life seems unclear, let’s remember this: The way forward is found in the surrender, in the bended knees and the lifted prayers. The way forward is to first be still, to be wholly and completely undone, so God can rebuild from the inside out.
A pretense of perfection builds walls between us and God, us and others. It allows pride to obstruct our efforts to be missional. So friends, let’s drop the façade and let the worn burlap of our wreaths unravel in God’s hands. Let’s lean into the surrender, lean into the real, the openness, the undoing. Through both being undone and reformed we can start ripples that will draw others to experience Christ’s transforming power in their own lives.
Jesus, today we surrender. We invite You to fully have Your way in us. We choose to be open, vulnerable, and real. We welcome Your work deep within us. We know that even as You pull things away that don’t well reflect You, You are still here, holding us. Thank you that You heal the broken and replace the good with the best. Thank you for walking with us as we learn how to live a life marked by mission. In Your holy and precious name, Lord, we pray. Amen.
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