It's been a really long time since I last posted. My life has been very crazy lately and its taken me awhile to process everything that has happened.
I just completed my first semester of college. I don't think I've ever grown so much in one period of time as I did these past 4 months. I've learned many valuable things, but the biggest one on my heart right now that I want to write about is identity.
In high school, I always felt a little bit trapped. I always felt like I could never truly be who I wanted to be. Some of this was because of things that had happened to me that hurt me deeply, but most of it was out of fear. I've always been a fearful person, and by last May, I decided that I would no longer be that fearful person. Because of my fear I wasn't truly being myself. I made the decision that with this new beginning at college I would truly open up and be myself.
At first I didn't relate this revelation to anything spiritual. I thought it was just a moment of myself getting fed up with my life. But, as I started college and began to act truly myself, I found there were mountains of differences than high school.
(Before I go on anymore, I should put out there that in high school I was really quiet, I mostly kept to myself and I didn't do many things out of fear)
I began to notice that by being my true self, God was able to do more work through me. When I'm being my true self, I'm I guess what you call a "nut". I do weird things, I'm a little more outgoing, and I have too much energy all the time. But, by being that weirdo that I am, it helps other people to open up a little bit more, and feel more relaxed.
God is able to use us as tools for His kingdom most when we are being our true selves.
Here is the thing though- the devil does not, at all, want us to be who we were made to be. The devil comes to lie, steal and destroy our lives. He does not want us to do good work for the Kingdom. The devil will try to sneak in and destroy our God given identities. Satan did this to me about half way through the semester. I had gone 1 1/2 months without even feeling a care in world about what people thought of my new found self, when all of a sudden, I began to feel self conscious. I had constant thoughts such as, "I'm too weird", "I'm too hyper", "people think I'm annoying". Thankfully, because of my relationship with Jesus Christ, I was able to identify what these thoughts were and work on ridding myself of them with the help of Him.
Not everyone out there though has this strength that Jesus Christ gives, and as Christians we have to remember to try and help others find their God given identity in Christ and to also be there to encourage others to keep living out their true selves .
We must also remember that the world, as it is so heavily influenced by Satan, will try to influence us that to have an acceptable identity, we need to be just like everyone else. The world wants us to be "cool". The world wants us to "be tough". The world wants us, in most cases, to have an identity opposite of what the Lord instilled in us at birth. Always strive to go against that. Strive to live in the direction of God and not the world, that way He can constantly reinforce your personality.
So, saying all this, I challenge everyone who reads this to sit and really think, "Am I revealing my true God given identity?"
