Last year, I told you about a dear friend and author, Kris Camealy, who wrote a book called Holey, Wholly, Holy: A Lenten Journey of Refinement. This year she released a companion workbook to go along with it. But really, Kris invites us to go deeper in God. And, to not fear inviting God to go deeper into the dark, hidden places of our soul, so He may change us into His image.

 

Can we just talk about how deeply profound and creative the title is?

  

HOLEY… Our souls have holes, apart from Christ. We are in the process, always in the process of being transformed by God. He accepts us the way we are, broken and battered, but doesn’t leave us the way we are. Christ fills all in all, making us whole.

“God’s desire for a closer relationship with us, requires us to be purified. Though He accepts us as we are, He has better for us. He loves us too much to leave us in our mess. He collects our broken shards and creates beauty from mere fragments…” — Kris Camealy (p.22 of workbook)

 

WHOLLY… God beckons us to be wholly His, the whole of of us, His. To love God, granting Him access to all the secret places of our soul, and with our hearts wholly adore Him, withholding no parts.

“To walk closer with Christ we must bravely surrender our independent selves to His will, to His discipline. It turns out, surrendering is harder than bravely pushing ahead.” — Kris Camealy (p.20 of workbook)

 

HOLY… And He makes us holy. We must invite Him in to do the work, but the actual work of transformation by our own self-effort is unavailing. It is done by God’s Holy Spirit.

“His desire is for us to be wholly His, that He might make us holy for Him. . . Wearing holy righteousness feels sometimes like a robe that doesn’t fit. Knowing the depths of my depravity, I recognize my inferiority . . . but that’s precisely the point. . . God overtakes a sin wrecked life and makes us holy.” — Kris Camealy (p.39, 53, 55 of book)

 

How often do our actions contradict our hearts desire to please God?

“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.” Rom 7:15 MSG

We, like Paul, do what we do not want to do, torn between two natures. “Less of me and more of You, God,” becomes our deepest cry and we want it to be true, because we know nothing else in this world will satisfy. God wants us to invite Him in to make us whole and make us wholly His, so we may be holy.

 

“The process of moving closer, of growing in Christ, brings with it much pain. And while there’s pain in the lessening of ourselves, the deeper blessings more than fill the hole we’ve spent years trying to cover over…” –Kris Camealy

Kris’s book and workbook are more than just words on a page or another Bible study. It is a journey to a deeper devotion and yielding to God. It is an invitation for God to do a deeper work in our hearts so we may continue to be transformed into His image. Buy Kris’s book and workbook, HERE and HERE.

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