Do you remember when you were young and you believed so many wild and crazy things? As children we turned refrigerator boxes into entire worlds, and we lived so care free. Recently, I was reminded of one of these things that I believed. Our parents told us we could be anything we wanted when we grew up. This one is particularly important to me because I believed it. Then, I “grew up” and I stopped believing, thinking it was just a lie that our parents told us to make us feel better about ourselves. Not understanding who I was, when I got older, I began to believe that I could only “go so far” and “do so much”.
I stopped believing in the idea because I thought that being able to do anything meant becoming successful. Success to the world meant being many things I thought I wasn’t. When I looked at myself in the mirror, all I saw was a reflection with labels that the world around me had determined. There was no way that I could be or do anything I wanted to. I was completely blinded by so many shortcomings that were placed in front of me. Even as I write this blog the whole world around me continues to put labels on me and I continue to lose sight. Recently though, I have been struggling through who I am because, who I am as the world sees me is not who I want to be. As I look at my reflection, I get frustrated.
This past week, however, I have had the chance to examine who my Father thinks I am. What does God say about who I am (and who all his children are)? God says that we are his children and we are loved. Now, this may be tough for so many of us to understand. So often the world puts negative ideas about what being a child and being loved are, but in Christ these ideas are free from the labels we put on them. These qualities are pure and perfect and free for us to be received. Many of the other truths I have recently come to discover are even tougher to see past the labels. Not only am I a loved child of God, but I am also righteous, holy, blameless, perfect, acceptable, worthy, precious, unique, special, and declared by God to be a saint. When I (we) accept Christ, we come into a whole new life; one that has no fault, no labels, and no condemnation. So, when our Father God tells us we can be anything, He means it. He knows that with child like faith and the new labels He puts on us, we are able to chase our dreams and bring him glory.
I will never forget the time Molly wrote a letter to me and told me that she wanted me to “have confidence in God that I am the man he has created me to be.” I leave that with all of you now; I want you to have confidence in God that you are the person he has created you to be.
