“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
- “Our Deepest Fear” by Marianne Williamson
I have heard this poem a lot. My high school principal would recite it to the student body every time she got the opportunity, but she always took out any of the verses that mention God. It was an expected thing because she was the principal of a public school; however, doing that always seemed to remove the weight of the poem for me. This poem speaks to our identity, so taking God out of it takes the truth out of it.
Since I arrived in Atlanta for Launch almost three weeks ago, God has been teaching me about identity. I had always thought that the most important aspect of someone’s identity was the uniqueness of it, but I was taught this week about how much power our universal, Christ-given identity has.
In Luke 4, after Jesus spends forty days in the desert without food the first thing that Satan says to try to attack him is, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). The first phrase of that is so important. “If you are the Son of God…” When Jesus is at a point when He should be the most tempted, the first thing that Satan attacks is Jesus’ identity. We know the power that Jesus had, so if Jesus had decided to He could have easily proved Satan wrong right then and turned that rock into bread. But He didn’t. Instead He quotes scripture, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’” (Luke 4:4).
When our base elder, Kevin, was first teaching us this lesson the question was raised, why would turning the rock to bread have been a bad thing. Kevin explained it like this: If Jesus had done that to prove Satan wrong, then it would have revealed that Jesus had felt the need to prove Himself. The need to prove yourself only comes from doubt. Jesus would have doubted His own identity, and if you doubt who you are for just a second then you are vulnerable to all the lies Satan could tell you about your worth.
I had never known how important it is to know your worth. The World Race has introduced me to incredible people that demonstrate awe-inspiring power and authority in their lives. One thing that I am still working on is trying to have my own power and my own authority in my own walk with Christ. I’ve realized that in order to do that I have to know who I am first, but I also have to choose to step into who I am. The bible says that we all are made in God’s image, sons and daughters of the King, the light of the world, more than conquerers, masterpieces. We have to know this. Not just know it for a moment then forget about it, but we have to choose to walk in that and take it with us wherever we go. Because if we truly KNOW who we are then any lie that Satan or anyone else tries to tell us cannot touch us.
I had always struggled to know my unique identity, but now I know that we have to accept our universal identity before we even have the power to step into our individual identities.
At our innermost being, who we are is set in stone. It is such a blessing to have that rock-solid foundation to build the rest of our character upon. This way we do not have to worry about what we are and what we are not. We are not our sin. We are not what anyone else says we are. We are not what we sometimes see ourselves as. We ARE who God says we are. God gives us authority and power, so do the world a favor and choose to walk in that.
