It started with me looking at my feet and in gratitude thanking Jesus for giving me the ability to like myself. There was a time when I didn’t like anything about myself and getting saved didn’t initially change that. Becoming aware of the unconditional love and acceptance of Jesus did, but it has been a process over time. Jesus said in John 8:31-32 “If you continue in my teaching you are my disciples. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. The key is to continue seeking Him and abiding in Him.
I thought back to childhood realizing only in retrospect that I was among a company of kids that were more like me rather than not. We all want to be loved, to be accepted for who we “really” are rather than what everyone else wants us to be. But when we lack the identity of belonging to God we are left to fend for ourselves to fill the void.
I spent years never knowing what I really liked or didn’t like simply because out of a need for acceptance I would like what the girl who everyone else was friends with liked or didn’t like. I couldn’t even have told you my favorite color, I just didn’t know because I was too afraid I might be rejected for it. It was that way with just about everything. Maybe you can relate, maybe not, but if so you know the routine went something like this. You look for the person who seems happy, who has a ton of friends, whose life appears to be better than the one you’re living and you think to yourself, if I just had that shirt or that pair of shoes or maybe their hair, then I would be happy and have a ton of friends too. The reality is we just end up more disappointed because there isn’t anything external that will make a lasting change in what we think about ourselves on the inside. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. The more we do this the more hurt we suffer and the higher we build walls to protect us. Unfortunately there are some kids who grow up and as adults live the same way, but with much more expensive stuff, like houses and cars and designer clothes, or occupational positions and titles. Searching for significance in all things external, being disappointed over and over again.
I have witnessed this same behavior in church among people who have not yet been healed of the wounds of living lives I describe above and was one of them at one time. I looked at others in the church who seemed happy, who appeared to be living the victorious Christian life and tried to fashion myself after them, just like when I was a child. Sometimes the people I sought to fashion myself after were no more victorious than I. The problem is that Jesus created us all unique and as we learn to dwell in His unconditional love and acceptance we find out who we really are.
If we don't hide ourselves in Christ and allow Him to become our fortified place we will erect all kind of false structures in order to feel secure, which are destined to fall sooner or later.
We may temporarily wall ourselves off from hurt but we also wall ourselves off from love, not only other peoples love, but Jesus' love as well. He is such a gentleman. He doesn’t come with a wrecking ball and demolish whatever wall you have built to hide behind, he dismantles it a brick at a time through His love and mercy accepting you right where you are, even if other people don’t. I love that about Him. He is the safest place we will ever find to be ourselves. The truth is he already knows everything about us and loves us anyway.
Poem: Only You
Poem: Only You
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