Its in the place of your disability that you will receive your upgrade.

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

I was recently in Glasgow. It was a double purpose trip… to visit one of my oldest and dearest friends and also to receive a prophecy from the incredible team at the Glasgow Prophetic Centre.

I was at the same hotel I had stayed in on a previous trip to Glasgow, so had an expectation of the room I would be staying in, however this room was different. It was much bigger than the previous one, with huge wall to wall windows overlooking a broad city street called Hope street (!) It felt like such an upgrade. Then I noticed that it was a disabled room. Hah! That will explain the wide berth around the bed and the commodious shower room. The Lord spoke straight into my spirit… Sally, its in the place of your disability that you will receive your upgrade. Not where you think you are skilled, talented and strong… not where you believe yourself to be qualified and ABLE but where you are disabled. In THAT place you will receive your upgrade.

The dictionary defines disabled as: a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities.

Even if we don’t have a physical or mental condition, the fact is we are all broken and disabled before God in some way.

In society we categorise disabilities and brokenness:

Addiction, Divorce, Incurable disease, Poor health, Rebellious children, Depression, Poverty, Debt, Loneliness etc.. etc...

We try to hide some of these disabilities because we think that if we own them we will be seen as weak or incapable. Even in church we have a habit of believing our strengths qualify us before God and our disabilities / brokenness and weaknesses disqualify us. Even in church we can measure each other by accomplishments and appearances. We can wear religion and performance as a cloak as we strive to adopt the correct and acceptable behaviours / at the same time hiding what we believe to be incorrect and unacceptable.

God is nowhere near as interested in our outward appearance and behaviour as he is in our heart.

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7

I recently used a toilet  that was intended for disabled people (to avoid the queue for the normal ones). When I emerged there was a rather irate lady waiting to go in who asked me rather pointedly ‘if I had a disability’. I thought briefly about lying (after all not all disabilities are visible! It says so on the sign) and offering a reply something along the lines of ‘weak bladder’ but instead sheepishly (and honestly) said no, to which she retorted.. well I do. Not a proud moment. #usethenormalloosinfuture

Not all disabilities are visible!! We can have shiny ‘nice’ successful lives on the surface and have hearts that are crippled and disabled by all manner of things… doubt, regret, disappointment, judgements, control, anger, impatience, intimidation, shame, fear, anxiety, pride, worthlessness, driven-ness, a sense of superiority etc.. etc…

For many years I was largely unaware of the state of my heart. If given a sticker and asked to place myself on the measuring stick of human nice-ness, I would have stuck it down about ¾ of the way along.. so a way to go… not perfect but, you know, getting better and doin’ ok!

There is so much wrong with this way of thinking!! This is carnal thinking that is rooted in pride. It was an ‘Oh My Goodness’ season when the Lord began to reveal my heart to me, and the truth of Jeremiah 17:9 became a revelation:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

I began to realise that I could no longer rely on my sticker system. I could no longer be content with ‘nice’. Jesus did not die to make me ‘nice’. He died so that every wicked thing; every infernal corridor of my heart, everything that ‘stinketh’, would find forgiveness, reconciliation, healing  and LIFE in Him.

If for a moment we believe that our hearts are fine and dandy and that we cannot be deceived, then on the very basis of that confession our hearts are not ok and we are already deceived. Our Saviour is relentless in His love for us. He is jealous for our hearts. For our WHOLE hearts because He knows that freedom can not reign where darkness lies hidden and concealed in the shadowlands of our souls. Some of our disabilities are obvious, but many lurk unbidden. In His beautiful kindness and grace, Jesus will lead us into places and situations that expose the secrets of our hearts.

He does not do this to shame us, but to bring us to a realisation and to a point of clarity, so that we see what He sees. So that we know the truth for it is only when we know the truth that the truth can set us free. (John 8:32)

I began to daily make David’s beautiful prayer in Psalm 139 my prayer, and to submit my heart to the searching gaze of the Almighty. I began daily to offer my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ and to give Him ‘access all areas.’

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24

God does not despise us in our brokenness. He does not categorise us as we do each other, for the ways of the world are upside down to the ways of the Kingdom. He does not discard people or push them aside. He does not say come back when you are good enough or know how to behave. He knows our frame… that we are as dust..

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust. Psalm 103:14

Your disabilities and weaknesses are not off-putting to Him… but I will tell you what is…

Trying to resolve, placate or accommodate your disability in anyway that does not involve the centrality of the cross for this is the essence of pride.

Every time we self-medicate our problem we are acting out of pride. Every time we compare ourselves to another (well my issue isn’t as bad as theirs) we are acting in pride. Any time we ignore our disabilities and stuff them down, try to reason with them; cover them up, justify them, we are acting in pride.

Pride is the killer; the grave stone.. not your brokenness. Not your disability. Every time we choose to act pridefully we become pharisees and we clothe ourselves in our own righteousness… in filthy garments of our own making. I know this I have lived it… and still the Lord, in His kindness needs to remind me again and again; to beckon me out of hiding and the futility of my own reasongings... to put off self. To come to Him.

Beloved, He is so close to us in our disabilities and our brokenness.

Psalm 34:18 proclaims this: The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. This is the truth.

So what will you do with your disability?

Your broken heart, your disabilities, the things that are oh so wrong and disturbing and troublesome and frankly vile. These things. These VERY things. Bring them to Him as a sacrifice. Bring your disability before your King and lay it down at the cross. He knows anyway! It was already nailed there 2000 years ago and He is waiting to take it from you.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

The hebrew word for broken-hearted is Shabar. It means (as you might expect) to break, collapse, crush, demolish, destroy, fracture, shatter.

But it also means to bring to the point of birth!

It's when we are at our most broken that we are closest to new life.. How is this? Because He, the very source of Life itself is close to the broken-hearted.

And what is the upgrade?

The dictionary defines upgrade as:

“to improve the quality or usefulness of something, or change it for something newer or of a better standard”

I think sometimes we fall into the trap of assuming that the upgrades God wants to give us are a better job / a better marriage / a healed body / freedom from depression / more friends etc.. etc.. Essentially we want stuff fixed. All of these things are good but this is not what the Lord meant when He said to me ‘The place of  your disability will become the place of your upgrade’

The cross is not a cosmic shop dispensing bigger and better things, it is a place where we connect with a God who pours out His very self in the most astonishing act of self -denial that He might meet with us spirit to spirit, heart to heart, breath to breath and skin to skin.  That He might know us and fill us with the very essence of His glory and His goodness. The cross is where we come to put off self and to die to all that is of our flesh. Not just the bad and the ugly. But also very often what we perceive as good. It is where we take off our filthy garments of self and where we come to Him naked and vulnerable.

In this sacred space we receive the most glorious upgrade of all. We receive Him. He is our treasure and our prize. He is our portion and our delight. He is our everything.

For all of my life but in particular over the last few years I have battled intimidation and shame. I have just journeyed through a time when the Lord was exposing these roots and turning up the heat to bring a whole lot of dross to the surface of my life. His timing is always perfect as I could not have faced it before. And in this place of such pain I learned the most precious lesson of my life. I learned that He is close. When others were repelled He was not. When I was disgusted with myself He drew me in and surrounded me with His embrace. I learned that there is a river of  life that flows continually from the throne of God and from the lamb and that He is the River and that He is the Life and that there is no intimidation in this place. No shame is found here.

The words He spoke over me in this sacred place of His presence literally broke open strongholds and left them shattered. I knew what it was to be lifted aloft on a wave of the purest hope and joy when all around me, in the natural seemed so broken. My heart had found HOME. My heart had found HIM.

Oh beloved.. this is our God and this is the upgrade He died for you to have.  What He has for you is newer and better and much improved on anything you could wish for or hope for. (1 Cor 2:9)  He takes our battered, bruised and dirty selves and gives us instead Himself. He takes our despair and gives us hope. He takes our ashes and gives us beauty. He takes our mournful spirit and pours out joy.

There is no good thing He will withhold from His beloved ones. Psalm 84:11

My prayer for you is that you will not despise your brokenness, your quirks and your pain. That you will not turn inwards against yourself or berate yourself, or ignore your broken feelings or self-medicate. My prayer for you is that you would come to the cross with your disability; that you would pour out your heart like water and that you would lean into Him with expectation. I pray that you will meet with Him there in the shadow of the cross. That you will step into the river of life and be washed clean. He is close and he is waiting for you.

Amen