By Marni Montanez
Psalm 139:13 New International Version (NIV)
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Remember the 1960's when this phrase was the enlightened wisdom of the day? "I have to find myself". These were kids who were taking drugs and following every cult imaginable to "find" themselves. I wonder if any of them did.
I grew up in the 60s but never used that phrase until I became a Christian. I thought I knew myself. I was convinced that I was perfectly healthy and normal. Of course, when you are in self-denial you don't know it's self-denial....right?
So, I went along my merry way feeling frustrated, depressed, angry and giving the impression that I was very secure. And that was all normal, until...........................God!
I remember one day sitting on my living room rug in Texas praying. I have no idea what I was praying about, but suddenly out of nowhere I got this revelation about myself and out from my mouth I blurted "I'm not real"!. It came out like if I was in a conversation with someone and they had asked "so what's wrong with you" and then I got the answer. Immediately I saw a vision of the Holy Spirit, pointing at me and He said. "That's it"! It's like He had been waiting for me to get that for a long time. So when I did get it, He wasted no time in making sure it stuck. I couldn't explain it to anyone. I couldn't even explain it to myself, but deep inside I knew what He meant. So I sat there stunned and not really knowing where to go with that new information about my, now shattered image. I don't know if any of you know this, but with all due respect, the Holy Spirit can be brutally honest.
So, now what? Where does one go with that kind of stunning new information? After all, I had gone to counseling many times, read self-help books and stood in many prayer lines, but none of that gave me insight as to who I was. So now I was using that infamous phrase "I have to find myself".
The deeper into relationship I went with the Lord the more I became aware of who He created me to be. As time went on I started shedding some of those weighty facades and accepting myself in a way that was liberating. Even today, I know there are still parts of myself that are just now surfacing and as they do there is a process of adjustment and becoming comfortable with these revelations. I have grown to love myself even in the "becoming" of who God created me to be. I know I am not done, but I also know that God never stopped creating me. Every day is an opportunity for something new to arise that I had not known about myself. Then I must re-adjust myself to incorporate the part of me that was abandoned or hidden.
All around you there are people who want to shape you into their image; whether it is your family members or friends and the truth is, they don't know who you were supposed to be and neither do you. The only One who knows exactly who you are supposed to be is the One who created you. So the next time you are lost in an endless array of questions about who you were created to be, try looking into the eyes of your Creator..........You will find yourself there.
Marni
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The
purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate,
and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through
Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord
require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your
God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or
crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the
standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for
the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not
Christian.