So You Want to Be Someone Different?
“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).
Let’s do something different. Let’s have you pretend you are someone different, someone completely different than whom I have made. You can decide your appearance, your personality, your strengths. You can decide your quirks, your special hidden talents. You can decide what makes you unique, valued, worthy. You can decide what it means to be a woman I am delighted to look on and call precious, adored, daughter.
Do you see her? Do you hear her? Can you grasp the picture you’ve created, this imaginary girl concocted in your head?
Is she all you want her to be? Don’t leave anything out. Write her out. Imagine her. Is she so different from you? Is she like you or the opposite of everything I’ve made you to be?
How is her worth measured? How did you decide to write her eyes the way you did, or make her laugh like that, or have her get things done so quickly, so efficiently, so perfectly? Who is this girl-woman you’ve created whom you worship and think I love more than I could ever, possibly, love you?
Why do you worship this pretend self you wish existed rather than Me?
She needs to be destroyed now, you know. She needs to be thrown into the fire, where all lies need to be sent to be destroyed, for good. This imaginary girl you’ve created in your head is not the daughter I have crafted with my two hands. She is not the woman I have born with my breath and designed, in all your wondrous and perfect beauty, to be.
Throw down this lie you chase that makes you strive toward imaginary perfection. You will not receive my joy, my peace, my life in you that sustains if you continue to chase what is not meant for you to attain. Who are you to decide what it means to be desired, perfected, worthy? Who are you to shun what I’ve made and desire something different?
Let Me show you this daughter of mine. Let Me show you the beauty of her, the joy she brings Me, the strength in her to love just the way I’ve made her to love, to work with the passions I’ve given her to use. She is mighty when she knows who and whose she is and abandons all idols that bring distraction to this life I’ve given her, distractions that bring death to her heart.
For I bring life, my daughter. I bring you life. And this life I bring you is in you. I am in you. You are my delight and the one I sing over and never, ever want to leave.
|| More Resources For You ||
“My eyes are on beauty, on His open hands, His face shining and sure, and I am myself; perfectly brave and sure and wild. I have leaped, and, mid-air, before I am caught, I hear His whispers from the sky, in the air, in the breath, so sweet, in my ears: I awaken what is asleep and breathe life into what death tries to make you believe has already died. I end the quiet deaths, the small, hidden choices to forget, to fall asleep, to give up. The water crashes around me as I submerge, an ageless wonder.” → From my article “Gratitude and the River of Life”
Leadership can carry different challenges for us as women than it does for most men. We want to be strong, but not come off as mean or too pushy; we want to be decisive, but not appear controlling; we want to be empathetic, but not be seen as weak. But here is where all good leadership comes from, no matter our gender or personality: hearing the voice of our Savior. He is speaking, to us, all the time. He says now, “I ask you to go ahead, sometimes into new places, but they are places where I have been. And I show you the way to go there. You never head out—leading the way, on your own.” There’s more in this 3-day Loop devotional about hearing God’s voice, free for you and anyone you want to share it with.
If you’re waiting for something, know this: God is not confined by our world’s expectations. This article reminds us that He can move slowly and surely, but He can also move fast, faster than we might expect. Just think of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came on the disciples suddenly, like a mighty, rushing wind, after hours and hours of earnest prayer. Or of Paul and Silas worshipping Jesus all night in jail—when suddenly, God sent an earthquake to break their chains, leading to the jailer’s salvation. What a creative, mighty God we serve! Oh, Lord, help us remember this in the middle of the waiting.
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