Who or what do you measure yourself against? Honestly. Think about this right now. We all have this ongoing internal monologue about who we are. Wait, you don't? It's just me?
Assuming I'm not crazy and you have also spent a lifetime measuring your self worth by some standard somewhere, what is it?
Do you even know?
Our culture is kinda obsessed right now with branding, and re-branding, and image, and social media projections that have no basis in reality. We're all obsessed with pretending to be something that we are not. And this overwhelming focus on our false facades has completely cut us off from anything real. For that reason, so many in today's society feel unsettled. Unaccomplished. Unimportant. Unheard.
We're binge-watching and tweeting away a FALSE life of no significance when GOD has an epic adventure awaiting just outside our door if we will just focus on what is TRUE.
In the JRR Tolkien novel, The Hobbit, there is a special moment early in the book where Gandalf touches on this idea. Gandalf has mischievously selected a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, to join a throng of dwarves on an adventure to reclaim their treasure from a dragon named Smaug. For those of you who aren't nerds, I will explain that a hobbit would probably be the last creature you'd take on an adventure of any kind. They are short, fat, lazy, and not the sharpest tools in the shed. They don't stray far from home, and they spend most of the day eating.
The dwarves were not amused. They questioned Gandalf's selection of Bilbo. In response, Gandalf said of Bilbo, "There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself."
Gandalf saw a potential in Bilbo before anyone else did--including Bilbo.
And recently, I've been realizing the same is true of us. In my own life, the voice that I've listened to in the inner monologue of my self-identity has been a hostile one. It told me that I didn't measure up. It told me that I messed up too many things to be a success in life. It told me that I wasn't as good as this person, or that one, or really anyone. I'm not worth it.
It sounds childish for a nearly 40 year old to write this. I get it. And there's good reason for that. It's because I really was like a child cowering in fear. The feeling of helplessness is like nothing that I can truly put into words. Fear paralyzed me from moving forward and from seeing who I really am. Fear caused me to passively accept defeat and embrace definitions for myself that were not TRUE.
I believe that each person deep down inside answers two questions:
1. Why was LOST cancelled?
2. What was that ending about?
Just kidding (for the most part.) I believe the two questions that define everything in our life are:
1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
And how we answer that about ourselves determines our response to every aspect of life. GOD has one answer for us:
Jeremiah 1:5:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
Jeremiah 29:11:
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
2 Corinthians 6:18:
“I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty.”
Sons and Daughters. Known before we were formed. Planned. Created. Given a future. Thoughts of peace and not evil. HOPE.
How often do we really listen to that? Honestly?
If you are anything like me, not much.
Too often we compare ourselves to just about everything else--other people, standards and ideals that we will never meet, expectations, the words of others, our past. These voices and thoughts drown out the still, small voice that assures us that we are LOVED. That we are FORGIVEN. That we are PRECIOUS.
FEAR is one very powerful stronghold in the life of a human being. It can keep you from the things you are destined to do and drive you to destructive behaviors designed to deaden your heart's pull toward your purpose. It can simultaneously be a hidden and unseen force and a powerful prison from which you can't seem to free yourself. FEAR can completely cut off the supply of HOPE coming from God and cause a person to be completely immune to words of life and hope spoken by loved ones and friends.
Just like Gandalf, however, God wants to silence those doubting voices. God has a bigger plan and dream for your life than you could ever possibly fathom.
Like Bilbo, however, you need to awaken your true identity and stop falling for false comparisons. When you stop accepting the false identity you believe about yourself, you will begin to see the sunlight. A new day will begin. God will reveal Himself to you in a new and more powerful way.
When you correctly answer the question of who you are, you will be open to what massively important and amazingly life-altering journey that God has for you.
Walk with me in this struggle. Let's cast out fear and embrace our purpose. I bet the world will thank us for it.
You are no longer a SLAVE of FEAR, you are a CHILD of GOD:
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