What God Sees

It has been a great challenge to me throughout my life to see myself in a positive light.  My flaws are quite evident to me, and no doubt to those around me as well, but the more I think about my relationship with my Father, the more I realize He does not see me as I see myself.  It is important, therefore, to change my view to reflect HIS view and opinion of me so I may see the truth.

Here are some scriptures that help remind me of His viewpoint.  

• Jeremiah 31:3 says God loves me with an everlasting love. He draws me to Himself with loving-kindness. (not force, feelings of inadequacy, guilt, etc., but with sweet wooing, kindness and generosity)

• Psalm 5:12 says I am blessed by God and He surrounds me with favor as a shield. (I have often thought of his surrounding me as protection, but never noticed that His favor is a shield)

• Psalm 139:17-18 says His thoughts are precious toward me. If I could count them they would outnumber the sand! (that means He is thinking good things about me all the time--so many that I can't even begin to number them! I picture the love of my life and how many good things I think about him, then think about how puny my love is in comparison!)

• 2 Corinthians 5:21 says I am the righteousness of God in Christ.  Christ's righteousness is in me, and flowing through me: it is a part of who I am!  If I am His righteousness, I can love others as He loves me. It would be a tall order if He wasn't living within my heart, directing my paths and showering me with His love all the time! 

• Song of Songs 4:7 says that God thinks I am beautiful. He sees no flaw in me. (This is where I stumble! NO FLAW??? BEAUTIFUL??? That's what HE sees. Lord, help ME to see that, too!)

• Zephaniah 3:17 describes God's heart toward me as protective, delighting in me, calming me with his love and rejoicing over me with singing. (He is serenading me! He is so happy with me that He is humming as He thinks about me!)

These are not ways most people picture God's view of them, or there would be more wanting to know and spend time with Him!  If He sees me this way, I know He sees others this way. 

Matthew 11:28-30 in the Message says:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?  Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life.  I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.  Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.

Unforced rhythms of grace. We don't have to work at this. We just need to believe it. What JOY and freedom that brings!  

God knows who you are and all you have done and He still loves you completely, unconditionally and wholly.  He sees the wounds and scars on your heart and desires to heal them and make you whole. He wants you to trust Him and rest in the knowledge that His grace is sufficient to bring you through any circumstance, and that it won't seem like a burden to be in His company. 

I pray you will learn to live freely and lightly and that you will discover how to take a real rest in Jesus.  I pray you will search His words to discover how He sees you, and once you learn how valuable you are to Him, that you will rest and draw near to His heart so He might continually bring you love, joy, and peace.

Speaking Kindness

Today during a meditative exercise, a startling recollection of an long forgotten incident that occurred when I was about four years old surfaced in my mind and brought mortified tears of shame to my eyes.  As I recalled it, I could feel the horrible wrenching pain that was dealt to me with this teasing remark.  With adult reasoning the event could easily be laughed off and dismissed as a playful remark from someone who was just looking for an excuse not to do something they didn't want to do:  from the perspective of a vulnerable child it was devastating.

The same opinion was expressed in diverse ways on multiple occasions by many different people, always having the same painful effect on my heart.  Eventually, that internal burden was heavy enough to drive me deeper and deeper into the lifestyle predicted by those misguided people. It only takes three times for a negative remark to become reality--imagine hearing it repeated so many different ways over many years!

Unfortunately children are often dealt these off-the-cuff insults in the name of teasing, or in some cases from a misguided sense of "helping" them.  They may or may not sink into the heart to later surface as a blockage of some sort, but if there is any emotion attached--embarrassment, shame, fear, anger--without the tools to release the pain and send away the offense, a child will bury the memory and it will later haunt them with some sort of physical or emotional ailment or impediment to a happy life.

The most cruel of these remarks are those that relate to a child's physical or mental state, over which even an adult has little control--much less would a child. The inability to reason, which is not developed until around the age of 12, makes it all the more necessary to be very honest with a child, building him up with truth from God's word about his worth.  Calling him names or impugning his character in some way has a strong negative effect on his sense of worth.

Laughter, which reflects the desirable emotion of joy, is just as potent as shame as a means for applying a negative emotion to the heart.  For instance, if mother always refers to her child as a brat or hellion, then laughs about it, a child can easily transfer that opinion to his or her heart, thereby cementing it as an owned trait.  Later in life when they are continually in and out of trouble, unless they discover the tools to release the emotional burden placed on them, they will have no way to overcome a life of chaos and misery.  They were repeatedly told this was who they were, so they have no choice but to assume that identity.

Consider what effect it would have for someone you counted on for love and acceptance to continually berate you for your weight, height, or lack of some physical characteristic considered to be beautiful by societal standards.  The remarks need not even be overt, but might be something like, "If you wouldn't eat so much..." or "You are so short ..."  It is challenging enough to hear that as an adult for most people, although there seem to be some that are able to overlook such remarks.  But consider how a child might react--they feel judged and found guilty of an offense they have no control over.

I am grateful to have discovered the tools necessary to identify and clear out the burdens that were placed on me in my youth, which was marked by many losses and little positive encouragement toward God's view and opinion of me.  As I gradually peel away the layers and reveal the source of many of my poor decisions and misguided paths, I am finding some wonderful God-given gifts and much love that had been buried along with the pain.

I pray you will spend some time quietly before the Lord asking yourself some questions about your past to discover the cause of the limits in your life.  As you discover these indignities and hurts, release them and find a path to the person you were meant to be and the life you were meant to live.  Then concentrate on finding all the good, beautiful, perfect, kind aspects of your life and those around you and speak them frequently and with fluency.  As you reinforce God's good opinion of yourself and others, you will see a lovely life unfold around you.

God has provided you with healing, dignity and worth through Jesus Christ and wishes above all things that you prosper in all ways.  As your soul prospers (your thoughts and emotions) you will walk in abundance in all areas of your life.  So be it.