27 Jan Believing you are worthy.
Three lies that I sometimes believe:
1. Anything that is green is healthy. Period.
For example…
This Trader Joe’s Pesto sauce on anything…Pasta, Gluten-free pasta, Toast, Crackers…you name it. It’s green. It’s good. It’s healthy.
2. My food taste better on a cherry plate as opposed to any other fruit plate.
You see my mother has these dishes that have pictures of fruit on them. Plums, Peaches, Cherries, and Pears. I only eat off the cherry plates because (obviously) they are the best ones and definitely impact the taste of my meal.
The weirdest part about this (yes, it gets weirder) is that cherries aren’t even my favorite, especially the cherries of maraschino variety. Which just happen to be the ones pictures on the plates. (Freak.)
3. I am not good because I never live up to my own expectation of “perfection.”
This is where we’re going to hang out today. This lie. This lie that is so sneaky yet so pervasive it threatens to suck the life out of me and my every relationship.
exhibit a. I am sinful. I screw up every day. I choose pride and being right over being gracious and kind others. I keep others at a distance in order to protect myself.
exhibit b. I’m a hypocrite. I believe in beauty yet withhold it from my grasp. I tell others to love their bodies and the beauty God gave them yet abstain from accepting it for myself.
exhibit c. I try to earn others love. I try to make others happy so I seem pleasing and am a “good little girl.”
exhibit d. “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” Romans 3:22&23
hope: “…and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” Romans 3: 23-25
You see I’ve been thinking a lot lately of what a disservice I am doing to myself and others and God by not believing who I truly am and accepting my true identity.
Much light has been continuously shed on my own lack of respect, love, and appreciation for myself, frequently calling my own worth into question. Struggling with accepting myself and finding myself worthy of the love I am offered.
John of the Cross wrote of four levels of love, the last and most intimate level being Loving God for Self’s Sake.
For the record I studied this months ago and it’s still blowing my mind. Why would I love myself for God’s sake? God does not need me to love him, certainly that is very true. My thoughts have taken me time and again back to Philippians…
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very natureGod, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very natureof a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8
Who am I?
Who am I that I would not serve others? Who am I that I would be prideful? Who am I that I would not submit my life to God? Who am I that I would consider myself better than anyone? Who am I to be self-righteous when Jesus Christ, King of Kings, humbled himself for me? And then it struck me one day: “who am I to put myself down, to believe I am unworthy, to think poorly of myself, to believe I will never be good enough for anything?”
In believing these lies about who I am, does it make Jesus’s acts all in vain?
I think it does.
When I choose to not love myself, when I decide against accepting the huge gift of life God has given me, when I deem myself unworthy and live a life from those beliefs, I am wasting the life of Jesus!!?
!!! Are you choking right now? Does the pit of your stomach suddenly seem to have lodged itself in your throat…that’s how I feel.
When I live in that place I am virtually telling Jesus, God, and the spirit hovering above me waiting to inhabit me, that it is not good enough. What a painful (and completely absurd) reality. A reality where the God of the Universe, the Creator of all things, the Master Artist, the One holy, completely righteous, and perfect God created me.
Not only did he create me, the most imperfect being who betrays His trust everyday, but He created me because He loves me. He created me and welcomed me into a reality where…although I do not deserve it…although I can never earn it…although I may never fully appreciate it…He calls me to love myself, appreciate myself, to find myself worthy, and to love others the same
…simply because He does.
He did.
He gave everything to make this true. It is a twisted reality really. You seriously could not make this up.
Gary Moon says, “we can do nothing, that is, except to marvel at God’s love and open our hearts even wider as we awaken more and more to the excitement, glory, and transformational possibilities of Christ within.”
It is an incredible proposal we are offered. It does not take books, meditation, or prayer to recognize that. However, the depth, the intimacy, the intricately woven plans, and pursuit of a Father who loves us with an outrageous love…well, that may take a lifetime to grasp.
The beautiful part is that I don’t think He minds.
God has shown me nothing, if not that He is a patient and gentle God. Sometimes I wonder how we miss it. How do we miss a love, a kindness, a gentleness, and the overwhelming graciousness of our Father that is bigger than we could ever imagine? It is so huge one would think it would be impossible…but we are quite dense.
So that was a lot, huh?
But can you believe it? Can you accept, grasp, cling to this intensely profound and incredible truth that you are valuable and valued because He gives you value? That’s it.
I hope so. I hope that we all find the grace and power to live out of this place of grace and love…as opposed to any of the other selfish and fearful spots to live from.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.”
1 Corinthians 15: 10
KJM
Posted at 03:47h, 28 Januaryi love where you are right now…it makes my heart happy
EmilyLorin
Posted at 02:14h, 31 January