Who are you?
What do you like to do?
What makes you tick and brings you great joy?
For years, I couldn’t answer those questions well. I wasn’t sure what I liked or who I really was. I was too busy looking at others and what they liked instead of leaning in to my uniqueness.
But, there’s something that happens when we become real with ourselves. When we give ourselves permission to be who we are… who God created us to be… we end up discovering who we really are.
As we live real lives we discover who we are.
We no longer look to others or to try to be anyone else. We stop trying to measure up and simply rest in the assurance of self-acceptance. But, I found, there’s more to it than that. By living real lives we discover who are are because of how God created us. We discussed days ago how living real is accepting our uniqueness and embracing how God gifted us. When we do that we can’t help but look to God in thankfulness and awe.
It’s then when we discover who we really are.
Take a look:
If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me. Matthew 10:39 MSG
I don’t know about you, but forgetting about myself isn’t so easy to do. I think about myself way too much… my comfort, my schedule, my future, my life. So, how on earth do I forget myself?
How on earth do I forget myself?
My focus need to change. Instead of focusing on me so much of the time, what if I focused on God and His plans for me? What if I truly gave up my will for His? I may say I do these things, but really, do I? Goodness, this post humbles me. I wonder, will I ever accomplish this on this side of eternity?
Friend, how do you do it? Are you pretty good at this forgetting yourself thing? I’d love to read your thoughts and what works for you below.
In the meantime, we can pray for God’s equipping, His grace, and His power to be evident in our lives… as we forget ourselves and look to Him.
Living real. Let’s continue to discover who we really are. One day at a time.
Blessings, friend!
Julie
It’s a joyous day… Day 20 of 31 Days of Living a Real Life. You can find the prior posts here.
I’m linking up with my Five Minute Friday friends, on the prompt DISCOVER. It’s free-writing for five minutes, imperfect and freeing! Check out these amazing people and their writing here. And, I invite you to try it for yourself.
First, love your quote from Matthew, including the blackboard effect presentation of it. Grateful to read your extremely authentic post.Yes, it can be difficult to avoid living a life on the surface of things only. Going deeper to authenticity is shown so well in your post, God’s love shines through.
Thank you for your kind words. I believe in living real (as you can probably tell) and helping others do the same. It’s a joy to meet fellow sojourners like yourself. Thanks for stopping in and for sharing. Have a blessed day!
It’s like you hear my thoughts and write them down! God’s definitely using you to speak to me! Thank you, thank you for being willing to share yourself and your wisdom with us! Cindy
Cindy, you made me smile. I love how God uses each of us to speak to one another in ways that relate to us. It’s pretty incredible when we stop to think about it. Thank YOU for being such an encourager to me. Bless you, friend!
I could relate to what you said here about looking at others to see what they liked or did, and not really recognizing my own uniqueness … but then you’re right, the other extreme of focusing totally on ourselves and our needs isn’t right either! It’s a challenge, isn’t it: to really be the self God made me to be, and own that — but not make our agenda the centre of all things.
I find that listening to or reading other people’s stories (as we do here at FMF, for example) can help, because then I’m reminded that God deals with everyone in a unique way and we are all on this journey of faith together. And He is using our unique gifts for a purpose – not just to please ourselves but to bring beauty and healing to this world. Thanks for writing this; I really appreciated it!
Jeannie (I’m at #61 in the linkup this week)
Thanks, Jeannie, for stopping over and for sharing! What a great suggestion… listening or reading to other people’s stories helps remind us of our uniqueness. What a gift that is! Thank you. May we continue to spur one another on in the ways God created us. I appreciate your words! Bless you.
Not really sure, anymore, who I am, but I do my best to be whatever that is.
#1 at FMF this week.
https://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2017/10/your-dying-spouse-388-caregiver-so-far.html
That’s what matters, Andrew. I’ll be over to visit your post! Bless you.
We each have been given unique gifts that make us who we are.
Yes, that’s for sure, Tara. Thankful!