“For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b)
We are all artists in one form or another. We create, imagine, and produce. We engineer, design, sculpt, program, refine, organize, manage, and so much more; and our desire is to produce something good, that’s of worth. All too often we see what we create as a measure of who we are.
Personally, I love to write, but hesitate to start the writing process, because once I do, it means I have to continue. I am committed. The ball begins to roll and I chase after it, twisting and turning and often wrestling with it, until I get to the bottom of the production hill and the work is done.
At the bottom of that hill however, another hill begins—the hill of acceptance.
It’s that feeling most of us get after turning in a finished project to the boss. You wait for a response. What do they think? How do they feel about this? Did I get this one right?
The work is out there, and now the lovers and critics come out to play. The artist looks for any hint of agreement with their finished art; and with one squinted eye open, they scan for the naysayers. Trying not to care, the artist goes about their “normal” life and daily duties. Yet, a powerful question remains: “Did they like it?”
Let’s be honest. What we are really asking is, “Do they like me?” This is a dangerous and loaded question because it confuses what we produce with who we are.
When we do this, we put our acceptance—maybe even our worth—into someone else’s hands. We make it their call, not ours, to tell us who we are.
Discovering who we are is a life long journey in which God reveals layer by layer the person He formed—it is your core person—a whole person, before the wounds that people and life inflicted, before our failures or environment swayed us.
What makes you good at the core? Jesus.
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.”- Ephesians 1:4
I am a good person because at the core, Christ made me and Jesus lives in me, even if what I produce is not the best. I can be late and forget appointments on my calendar or the library books that got lost in the abyss of my mini-van. I didn’t hang my clothes up like I thought I would. My clean clothes don’t seem to take the leap from the basket to the drawers, yet again. Do you like me now?
What we produce is not who we are. A kid is not bad because they behave badly. What they produced was bad, but they themselves are not bad.
Every now and then we produce something great and hit it out of the park. Man, doesn’t it feel good? It is easy to love who we are on those days, because we produced something that made us happy and proud. We feel satisfied, and people love us because we “did a good job.”
Other days, the storm clouds seem to rage within, and at the end of the day we may not be proud of what we accomplished or did.
In those days, we must remember that what we produce is not who we are.
Love yourself the way Christ loves you, despite what others say or think. The more you accept yourself, the lighter and better you will feel. Love will surround you. Your days will be better, because at the end of them, no matter what you did that day, you can know that God loves you. If He can accept you, you are free to accept and love yourself.
You are good because He is good and He is in you.
“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? …No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow–not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below–indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:35, 37-39
Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
