Life is a gift. Your life is a gift. It’s a gift to you from God, and it’s a gift from God to others. He created you and wired you with unique gifts and a distinct personality. He has put you in certain situations to help you develop characteristics, likes, and culture for you to enjoy and to connect you with other people who need Jesus in those cultures.
He also just plain delights in you. God delights in you. He just enjoys you for who you are — like I simply enjoy my kids when they tell me something funny or unintentionally make a facial expression I find to be so cute. They are just being. They’re just being cute. God just delights in you because you’re His kid.
God delighted in the idea of you when He planned you. You have always been planned. Your first day and your last day on this earth were planned. The moment you were conceived in your mother’s womb was your first day, and He’s been doing amazing feats since then.
You are unique, and you are wonderful the way you are. Yes, the world has impacted you and tried to take away the beauty of who you are, but God has even created a way to get you back to who you were made to be — someone who is spotless and without shame because of what Jesus did — to get you back to who you are and who He created you to be.
And so, be you. Be that person — the way God created you to be.
You walk through days, cultures, situations and pressures that do not honor who you are or how you are and in those moments. Without even our knowing, we sometimes adapt too far to fit into that culture, that situation, that group, and we find ourselves surprised one day that we do not feel like our true selves. We do not feel like ourselves. We feel lost, muddy, and confused. But we don’t have to stay there. We can go back to who we really are.
It takes work. It takes focus. It takes “yes” to the right thing and “no” to the wrong things. It takes courage to be who God created you to be, especially when it goes against the grain of the culture you’re in. But you don’t want to just adapt, to become what everybody else wants you to become.
You don’t want to be a chameleon that fits into every situation. You won’t feel okay, because you aren’t being truthful. You aren’t being truthful in who you really are, and you are not standing up for who you really are. It’s important to do that. There are ways to do that, to be gracious and to say, “I think I’m going to pass on that opportunity,” knowing you want to bypass on that pressure. You can say, “I’m busy today,” or, “That doesn’t really fit into my 5-year plan.”
It is also OK to realize that you’ve gotten into the wrong situation, and it’s time to change. It’s time to find your way back to who you are and how God made you, because after all, we won’t feel peace, we won’t feel fulfilled, until we are living in the fullness of who God wired us and created us to be.
So, do the work. Do the work it takes to be you, to allow yourself to be you. Say the “yes”es and say the “no”s. Make the moves that you need to make to fully live in the calling that God has given you. It’s worth the work.
What is an example? An example might be that you’re trying to fit into a certain role or a certain group. You’re trying to talk the way they talk. You’re trying to look the way they look, behave the way they behave, but you feel like you have sold yourself out. And that’s not okay.
You spend more time with you than anyone else, and it’s important to be who you are, to enjoy who you are, to enjoy who God made you to be, and not to change yourself to be someone that you are not to be accepted by people that you weren’t called to walk with.
So I just wanted to encourage you (and myself) today to fully be who God created you to be. Make the changes it takes to do that. Then, you can be fully known by other people and feel fully loved when they love you.
You’ll laugh more. You’ll feel more fulfilled in the work that you’re doing. You’ll enjoy yourself more in your “yes”es and feel less guilty in your “no”s as you move ahead. And, like I said, life is a gift, and you will enjoy your life so much more, which will show as you experience joy and shine brightly.
Sarah Guldalian 