How Can I Be Like Christ?

I look around the world today, when we are in the middle of the season that is supposed to be all about celebrating the birth of Christ, and I begin to feel discouraged. I begin to wonder, how can I, a small, broken woman, proclaim Christ to a world that is in so much pain. As I read in Isaiah this morning a few verses jumped out to me:

Isaiah 3:15 "People will oppress each other, man against man, neighbor against neighbor. The young will rise up against the old, the nobody against the honored."

Isaiah 5:20 " Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

My sweet friends, this is the time that we live in. People are being oppressed in every corner of the world and society celebrates evil and sin. How do I rise above that? How do I show Christ to others? I feel so broken, full of holes. It is so easy for me to look around and feel overwhelmed and terrified of all of the need everywhere around me.

God can shine his light through those broken pieces of my soul. "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness' made his light shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). Those parts of myself that I'm not so proud of, God can use those to shine his light. He can work with my brokenness to show other broken people the redemptive power of his love.

So, how can I be like Christ? I can take this small, broken woman and I can give her to God. I can spend time in his word. I can choose to obey his commands, and I can love the people that He places in my path. I can choose every day to love God more than myself and to love His people with all of my heart. When everywhere I look around me I see pain and suffering, I can choose to be love and shine just a little bit of light into the darkness of this world.