Who You Say I Am by Kimberly Bauer
February 3rd, 2019
This time of year I get pretty sentimental. I spend some time reflecting on the things that have happened throughout the year, and make my plans for the new year. Not like New Year Resolutions, but more like an opportunity to learn from the year and not make the same mistakes. This is my chance to set some goals for the new season. Last year was very busy and full of change! God has been using retreats, Sunday sermons and chats with friends to challenge me to trust Him with more and more of my heart. This walk has brought many tears, as the things that He is showing me are very tangled-up in who I think that I am.
In looking through my journal entries, there has been a recurring theme. The seasons were different and the challenges unique, but I found a similar thread running through my entire year. I have struggled for a long time with seeing any value in myself as a person. Yep, I can’t believe that I just wrote that down so boldly either. I am not saying that I am depressed or thinking of driving off a cliff, but I have spent the better part of my life not valuing myself for who I am. On the road of my life the habits that run deep are not in valuing who I am, but what I can do. I have well-worn tire marks that default into words that I say over myself that are very unkind. I have become a master-craftsman in the art of “doing”. I have become so skilled at ignoring who I am that I am having to re-learn what it looks like to be ‘me’. I don’t think that I am alone in this.
I have heard recently that you can’t just stop doing something. You need to replace it with something else. In effort to replace the unkindness that I have been living my life in, I have been diving into God’s Word more, learning about His character and how He sees us as His children. God loves us so incredibly that He gave the most precious thing, His son Jesus. God gave His only son, to die as a payment in-full for our sins. Jesus paid the price so that we could be called children. Jesus didn’t pay that price so that I could beat myself up because I don’t look or act a certain way…He died for what matters…who I am. Jesus died so that we could be in relationship. He has been showing me that I have been settling for a life that is so much less than what He has intended for me.
It is by grace we have been saved, this not from ourselves.
It is a gift of God not by works so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8
Knowing more about who God is, helps me to identify ways that my thinking is off-track. I don’t deserve the grace of God, but He gave it as a gift for us. I have the opportunity to take this gift and do many things with it. I can open it, fail to read the instruction book (bible), and live my life according to what I think God wants for me. I can look at the gift and admire it but never really pick it up and open it. The best thing that I am committed to doing, is opening that gift and receiving all that that gift has to offer. When I walk in the fullness of that gift…that I am the daughter of the Lord-Most-High…that changes things!
For we are God’s masterpiece.
He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,
so that we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.
Ephesians 2:10
Is it still hard to wake-up in the morning? YES!!! I have not arrived! Actually, some of the things that God is showing me (as I read the Life Instruction Manual), are not easy things to face. If I am being truly honest…nothing about this is easy at all! There have been many times that I have been challenged to set aside some beliefs about myself and others that have been part of 'who I am’ for a long time. It is kind of the equivalent of ripping the rug out from under my feet…only to find out that the ground is eroded too. Each time that God invites me, I am not who I was at the beginning of this year – and I am so grateful for that.
The bottom line is this: God is able, and God is willing. So, as I buckle-in for the ride of my life, I am trusting that He knows me better than I know myself. I choose to trust the maker of my heart, to fix the parts that are broken (even if I don’t see those parts). I choose to face the parts of me that God wants to correct, and trust that He will use it for HIS greater good. I used to say this prayer in reference to the kids that God has placed on my path: “I don’t want to miss a single heart-beat”. But I choose to not live under the wrong habits and ideas for even another one of my own heartbeats.
Kimberly Bauer
