Learning to Be Yourself
"God's asking me to be the thing He's already created me to be."
- Shauna Niequist, Present over Perfect
I drive down the crowded street and wait at stop lights where people stand in the hot sun selling green mangos with salt and hot sauce. I sweep my house, and within the same day, my house is already full of dust and ashes from where the neighbors burn their garbage and cook on their outdoor adobe wood stove. I head to the bank to make a deposit and take a number to wait in line for half an hour--a far cry from my small town bank back home where there's never more than one person in front of me. I wake up with a full to-do list for writing and replying to e-mails only to discover that the electricity is off again, and my agenda changes. Every day, I cart the accumulated dirty dishes behind my house to the pila where I lather up the dishes and fill the basin with water to rinse the soapy dishes with handfuls of water. Every morning, Raúl brings a bucket of water from the pila, and we stick an electric water heater in it to warm it up for bathing. Every day, I speak and listen in my second language and operate according to the rules of my second culture. All of this has become every day life to me now after six years, but somewhere along the line a year or so ago, I started to feel like I'd lost too much of myself in adapting to a new country and culture. I worked so hard to assimilate that I forgot the unique things I liked and aspects of what made me, me. Since that realization I have turned over the thought of who I am like a quarter in my pocket, and I've started to give myself permission to be more of myself even when that means I don't easily fit in within my surroundings.
Recently, I have seen this theme of rejoicing in who one uniquely is and the potential we each have to offer in various aspects of pop culture. From the powerful sense of belonging for the people of Wakanda in Black Panther to the message that the Force is for everyone in the newest Star Wars, from seeing women being represented as wise, just leaders in Wonder Woman and The Post to seeing a winner sign her Oscar acceptance speech as a way of honoring those who are deaf, the need to be accepted and honored exactly as the people we are is within all of us. And, I think it's a desire that God's placed in all of our hearts because He enjoys His own creativity when it is free to shine. But, part of the beauty of God's originality is that He lets us decide who we're going to be. Only we can decide if we'll be our true selves or not.
Deciding to be yourself--the true self that God made you to be--is often difficult because of the reality of community. As Erin S. Lane says in her book, Lessons in Belonging From a Church-Going Commitment Phobe,
"'God, where are you calling us? I want to be someplace where we can really be ourselves and use the gifts you've given us. But I also want to be someplace that needs us, uniquely as we are.' It's the hazard of my love affair with tension that I often find myself in communities where my gifts are called into question. . . . How can I find a community in which I feel as if my gifts are needed while still feeling like I'm valued?" I have often felt the same feelings while living in Honduras. I have often felt that perhaps I do have something to offer, but often, what I have to offer is seen as being so strange that it's often not valued and definitely not initially recognized as needed. But, I am learning that when I am true to who God says I am, regardless of whether it is initially understood or well-received, I feel peace. And, when I start to feel peace and security that's based on my relationship with God and not even on my effectiveness in ministry, people around me observe that and often feel inspired to want that too.
We will never fully learn who we are without having a close relationship with our Creator. We can recognize our own likes and gifts, but no one knows better our purpose than the one who invented us. I recently watched a message by Dan McCollam where he explains the three measures that God gives us in life--a measure of grace (our gifts and talents), a measure of faith, and a measure of authority to influence. That message has stirred thoughts of whether my life and what receives my energy and efforts best reflects those three measures. Am I using and pursuing growth in my gifts? Do I believe in what God has entrusted to me? And do I know where God has permitted me to have influence to best impact the lives of others? As Kris Vallotton says, "Your gift works everywhere, but it works best somewhere with/on someone." With that said, I also know that not everything that God calls us to or leads us to "works out" in the way that we often believe it should. Sometimes, "fruit" doesn't look like we feel like it should. It can't be measured. Sometimes, we take a step of faith, and it seems that the situation only gets worse. But, God's ways are not like our own. And He is more interested in the molding of our own maturity and character than He is in our product. That's why He doesn't just lead us to a pot of gold but rather leads us through the fire to make us gold ourselves.
But, what happens when we've been living life for ourselves? What happens when we've never taken God's will or purposes into account but have sought out our own desires and whims only to be surrounded by disaster as a result? What happens when our dreams don't fulfill us like we thought they would even when they do work out wonderfully? What happens when we wake up one day and realize that we want to stop the ride we stumbled on but don't know how to get off? Do we lose our callings? Have we wasted the best that God always had for us? I think the answer to all of these questions can be found in the story of Jesus and his own family tree. Jesus is from the lineage of David. But, He is not from the lineage of Michal, David's first wife, but rather Bathsheba, the woman David lusted after, brought to the palace, impregnated, and then had her husband killed in battle. We know that God's heart for marriage is for husband and wife to become one. Marriage is something sacred and lasting to God, or He wouldn't have used marriage to illustrate His relationship to the Church and as His example of His love for us. So, ideally, Jesus would've been born of the lineage of Michal, but He wasn't. He was born of the lineage of one of David's most horrible mistakes. If Jesus' life and calling were fulfilled in spite of human mistakes, I believe that each one of us can be found by God exactly where we surrender in our stories. I believe that He is capable, in the most artistic of ways, of fulfilling our lives and callings and purposes no matter how late or how rocky our start is.
The truth of the matter is that when we decide to let ourselves be who God called us to be, we're also letting God be more than who we've defined Him as. God flourishes in our weaknesses and His glory is put on display through our surrendered lives. We will know Him in greater depth in all of His originality and unpredictable plans when we decide to allow Him to reveal to us who we really are. It's an unending journey of revelation, but it's a road I want to walk in alert consciousness, step-by-step. Knowing God and letting God know me in such a way that He shows me who I really am. There's a certain security in resting in a place of being known rather than striving to be known in a place of no rest. To our fellow humans, we may never be enough, but God is only asking me to be who He already made me and equipped me to uniquely be.
Sarah
- Shauna Niequist, Present over Perfect
I drive down the crowded street and wait at stop lights where people stand in the hot sun selling green mangos with salt and hot sauce. I sweep my house, and within the same day, my house is already full of dust and ashes from where the neighbors burn their garbage and cook on their outdoor adobe wood stove. I head to the bank to make a deposit and take a number to wait in line for half an hour--a far cry from my small town bank back home where there's never more than one person in front of me. I wake up with a full to-do list for writing and replying to e-mails only to discover that the electricity is off again, and my agenda changes. Every day, I cart the accumulated dirty dishes behind my house to the pila where I lather up the dishes and fill the basin with water to rinse the soapy dishes with handfuls of water. Every morning, Raúl brings a bucket of water from the pila, and we stick an electric water heater in it to warm it up for bathing. Every day, I speak and listen in my second language and operate according to the rules of my second culture. All of this has become every day life to me now after six years, but somewhere along the line a year or so ago, I started to feel like I'd lost too much of myself in adapting to a new country and culture. I worked so hard to assimilate that I forgot the unique things I liked and aspects of what made me, me. Since that realization I have turned over the thought of who I am like a quarter in my pocket, and I've started to give myself permission to be more of myself even when that means I don't easily fit in within my surroundings.
Recently, I have seen this theme of rejoicing in who one uniquely is and the potential we each have to offer in various aspects of pop culture. From the powerful sense of belonging for the people of Wakanda in Black Panther to the message that the Force is for everyone in the newest Star Wars, from seeing women being represented as wise, just leaders in Wonder Woman and The Post to seeing a winner sign her Oscar acceptance speech as a way of honoring those who are deaf, the need to be accepted and honored exactly as the people we are is within all of us. And, I think it's a desire that God's placed in all of our hearts because He enjoys His own creativity when it is free to shine. But, part of the beauty of God's originality is that He lets us decide who we're going to be. Only we can decide if we'll be our true selves or not.
Deciding to be yourself--the true self that God made you to be--is often difficult because of the reality of community. As Erin S. Lane says in her book, Lessons in Belonging From a Church-Going Commitment Phobe,
"'God, where are you calling us? I want to be someplace where we can really be ourselves and use the gifts you've given us. But I also want to be someplace that needs us, uniquely as we are.' It's the hazard of my love affair with tension that I often find myself in communities where my gifts are called into question. . . . How can I find a community in which I feel as if my gifts are needed while still feeling like I'm valued?" I have often felt the same feelings while living in Honduras. I have often felt that perhaps I do have something to offer, but often, what I have to offer is seen as being so strange that it's often not valued and definitely not initially recognized as needed. But, I am learning that when I am true to who God says I am, regardless of whether it is initially understood or well-received, I feel peace. And, when I start to feel peace and security that's based on my relationship with God and not even on my effectiveness in ministry, people around me observe that and often feel inspired to want that too.
We will never fully learn who we are without having a close relationship with our Creator. We can recognize our own likes and gifts, but no one knows better our purpose than the one who invented us. I recently watched a message by Dan McCollam where he explains the three measures that God gives us in life--a measure of grace (our gifts and talents), a measure of faith, and a measure of authority to influence. That message has stirred thoughts of whether my life and what receives my energy and efforts best reflects those three measures. Am I using and pursuing growth in my gifts? Do I believe in what God has entrusted to me? And do I know where God has permitted me to have influence to best impact the lives of others? As Kris Vallotton says, "Your gift works everywhere, but it works best somewhere with/on someone." With that said, I also know that not everything that God calls us to or leads us to "works out" in the way that we often believe it should. Sometimes, "fruit" doesn't look like we feel like it should. It can't be measured. Sometimes, we take a step of faith, and it seems that the situation only gets worse. But, God's ways are not like our own. And He is more interested in the molding of our own maturity and character than He is in our product. That's why He doesn't just lead us to a pot of gold but rather leads us through the fire to make us gold ourselves.
But, what happens when we've been living life for ourselves? What happens when we've never taken God's will or purposes into account but have sought out our own desires and whims only to be surrounded by disaster as a result? What happens when our dreams don't fulfill us like we thought they would even when they do work out wonderfully? What happens when we wake up one day and realize that we want to stop the ride we stumbled on but don't know how to get off? Do we lose our callings? Have we wasted the best that God always had for us? I think the answer to all of these questions can be found in the story of Jesus and his own family tree. Jesus is from the lineage of David. But, He is not from the lineage of Michal, David's first wife, but rather Bathsheba, the woman David lusted after, brought to the palace, impregnated, and then had her husband killed in battle. We know that God's heart for marriage is for husband and wife to become one. Marriage is something sacred and lasting to God, or He wouldn't have used marriage to illustrate His relationship to the Church and as His example of His love for us. So, ideally, Jesus would've been born of the lineage of Michal, but He wasn't. He was born of the lineage of one of David's most horrible mistakes. If Jesus' life and calling were fulfilled in spite of human mistakes, I believe that each one of us can be found by God exactly where we surrender in our stories. I believe that He is capable, in the most artistic of ways, of fulfilling our lives and callings and purposes no matter how late or how rocky our start is.
The truth of the matter is that when we decide to let ourselves be who God called us to be, we're also letting God be more than who we've defined Him as. God flourishes in our weaknesses and His glory is put on display through our surrendered lives. We will know Him in greater depth in all of His originality and unpredictable plans when we decide to allow Him to reveal to us who we really are. It's an unending journey of revelation, but it's a road I want to walk in alert consciousness, step-by-step. Knowing God and letting God know me in such a way that He shows me who I really am. There's a certain security in resting in a place of being known rather than striving to be known in a place of no rest. To our fellow humans, we may never be enough, but God is only asking me to be who He already made me and equipped me to uniquely be.
Sarah
Comments
Post a Comment