The other day during ministry, my Squad Leader, Mark, gave part of his testimony and talked about how God viewed him.
I’ve never thought about that…how does God view me? I decided to pray about it and He kept giving me the word “peaceful” so I looked it up in the dictionary and the definition said “calm, quiet, freedom from war, harmony between people, absence of anxiety”. It blew my mind.
I have never viewed myself as these things, I don’t think anyone as ever viewed me in that way… Quite the opposite actually.
I wanted to know more about each word, I wanted to know why God called me into these titles.
Freedom from war was a big one for me, I’ve recently made the decision to stop fearing my depression and to quit labeling myself as “depressed”. That was my freedom from war. The war of sadness no longer lives inside me, I’m giving that battle to Jesus, because he carries the weight he knows I can’t. I have been set free.
Absence of anxiety goes back to the lesson God has been trying to teach me: that’s it’s okay to trust Him. To be anxious is to intensely desire something. I realized that when I desire anything that isn’t coming from God, that’s when anxiety bites me. When we trust the Lords plans, he gifts us with a spirit of calmness. But the second we start to doubt those plans or lost trust in God, we become anxious.
By calling me peaceful, he revealed more to me than I’ve ever known. God sees us as we are, not as the world sculpted us to be. The world may call me loud, anxious, overbearing, or depressed, but with one word, God crushed all of those labels. Take the time and talk to God and ask him how he sees you, he may change your whole perspective with one word.
A word you would have never used to describe yourself.
