Echoing the Voice of God

Do me a favor. Close your eyes for a moment and think about who you are.  How do you see yourself? What comes to mind first when you consider that question?  Is it something you would want to change about yourself or something that makes you smile?  Now consider who you are in Christ and how God sees you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about these questions recently and, while I would never claim to be a theologian or Bible scholar, I feel it’s something that God is calling me to address in this blog.  I hope you leave this post feeling encouraged.

It’s no secret that the world we live in today can be a cruel place and it can be difficult to hear the truth through the chaos. It seems like there’s always someone or something telling you that you’re not good enough, strong enough, smart enough, thin enough, enough in general. Sometimes that someone or something is on the outside -- ads on Facebook for weight loss supplements, your grandma at Thanksgiving asking when you’re going to get your life together and meet a nice guy/girl, those Instagram models that seem to have it all together with their washboard abs and their kale smoothies, or the bully pointing out everything you already hate about yourself -- and other times those critical voices can be coming at you from the inside -- the voice of anxiety, depression, past guilt, or even your everyday insecurities.  None of us are immune to these influences that try to take away our identity and push us to strive to be something other than who we truly are in Christ.

In order to fight back against all these negative voices coming at us everyday, we first have to know who we are in Christ, what our identity is, and how God sees us.

To refresh ourselves on those 3 points, let’s go straight to scripture: 

1. Let’s start from the beginning.  Psalm 139:13-16 reads “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”  I love this passage of scripture, not only because it details how God personally created every intimate detail of you specifically and perfectly the way He wanted you (therefore highlighting the tremendous, indescribable value and worth that you have in His eyes), but also because it shows that nothing you have done, are doing, or will do surprises God. He knew, before you were even conceived, every detail of your life. 
2. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that “if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has passed away and the new has come”. Likewise, Romans 8 assures us that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”.  These two verses very quickly and very simply negate the power of guilt and shame over our pasts and remind us that Jesus Christ has given us a clean slate. His sacrifice for us on the cross means that we don’t have to carry those things around with us anymore.
3. Romans 5:8 describes how God loved us enough to come down in the midst of our mess to pull us out rather than waiting for us to fix ourselves enough to be worthy of His time (which is impossible to do in our own power anyway). He saw enough value and enough purpose in YOU to come down and die to get you to be a part of His family forever (John 3:16; see also Galations 4).

Okay, so here’s the thing.  I’m not writing this post just to blather on about a bunch of stuff most of us already know (but never hurt to be reminded of).  I have another purpose in mind. You see, I struggle a lot with seeing myself through Christ’s eyes. I do struggle with depression and anxiety and guilt from my past and insecurities and caring what other people think and comparing myself to others and the list goes on and on.  I’m human and these are things that humans struggle with. The issue isn’t necessarily found in struggling with these things, the issue comes when these are the only voices you hear. We, as children of God, need to be echoing and repeating the things that HE says about us to each other for those times that we forget and His voice is drowned out by the voices of this world (it happens to all of us as much as we hate to admit it).

The very best example I can think of this type of echoing is my loving husband.  When I ask him, “Darling, why do you love me even though I’m so unlovable?” he always responds with something like this: “You are a daughter of the King and that makes you a princess.  A princess is worthy of love and respect. You were created by God and therefore you deserve someone to love you unconditionally regardless of your past.” He even calls me “Princess” so that I can remember this when He speaks to me.  He tells me every day that I’m beautiful, even when I don’t feel beautiful. When I ask him why he thinks I’m beautiful he often replies with, “Why do I think or why do I know?” and then continues “God created you in His image, and I think that makes you beautiful.”  When I ask him why he’s so quick to forgive me, even though I’ve done unforgivable things, he says, “Because I love you unconditionally and I won’t let anything that happens change that. You are so much more than the mistakes you've made and if I stop at the bad things, then I would be missing out on all the beautiful, exciting, fun parts of you that far outweigh them.  Forgiveness is a crucial part of relationships, like Christ demonstrated for us.” And on and on, every question I ask him comes back to “you are a daughter of the King and therefore you are worthy”. Christ makes us worthy.

I take great comfort in knowing that my husband is so able to speak life and affirmation of God’s purpose over me and that he will be able and willing to do the same for our daughter as she grows.

This is the approach to others that we should all strive to take.  I’ll be the first to admit that my husband is much better at this than I am.  I take every opportunity I can to do the same for him. But far beyond even my relationship with my husband, I strive to take this approach in every relationship I have in my life - to affirm and remind others of who they truly are in Christ.

**Yes, I did take this opportunity to brag on my amazing husband for a bit and as humble as he is, I’m sure he’ll turn bright red when reading this, but the message remains the same.