What is comes down to

Some days I find it hard to fit in.  Sometimes I want to; I just want to be the cool person for once in my life.  The one who everybody ooh’s and ahh’s over.  There is something deep within me that will never let that occur.  I am not someone who wants to be put in a box, to be figured out or to be labeled “that guy”.  I have never been one to follow the crowd or do it just because everyone else is.  I observed early on that being popular is fleeting and it’s a constant job to stay on top.  The other hard truth – someone is going to replace you at some point.

So often our identity can be shaped by the world around us.  For whatever reason we feel the need to project or wear a mask instead of getting comfortable in our own skin and accepting ourselves as we are.  We fight to claim our identity.  We believe all sorts of lies about who we are or what we should be.  We are desperate to have a sense of belonging we will cling to what is not truth.

We are just as guilty of labeling others and feeling the need to have them fit into a category. We make observations and judgments based on appearance and actions.  We hold people at arm’s length because we are fearful of hearing what they have to say or engaging them in a conversation.  We don’t want to really know a person, instead we just make assumptions.

When we begin to truly understand who we are, why we were made and what our purpose is, we begin to have a clearer picture of who we are.  For those of us who choose to follow Jesus, our identity belongs in Christ.  He came to save us from ourselves.  To give us a new life.  A life that means laying down everything we have believed to be true and completely transforming it.  A life where the lies we believe and are fed don’t match up and in fact make no sense whatsoever.

The lure of the world will remain like a shiny object to a toddler. Satan is deceptive and will never stop at getting us to believe the lies.  The only way to truly transform and renew ourselves is to be grounded in the truth of God’s word.  Day after day we will have to remind ourselves of his truth.  It isn’t easy, but it does get easier over time and through repetition.  When the lies come and they will, wisdom is found in battling the lies with the truth that is only found in one place and that is in Christ.

My life is a mess, I am broken and I have to combat the lies each and every day.  God is and has been transforming me into the man he wants me to be.  It’s not easy and some days the battles are tough, but there is no other place I want to be.  There is no greater feeling that knowing I am God’s child and he delights in me.  He created me and formed me and he knows exactly what he is doing.  I trust in that 100%.

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