“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine.”1
I can’t remember the last time I felt like I blended into the background. When someone’s attention diminished as I began to speak; I felt like an outsider. I’ve been experiencing, what I call on the surface level, paranoia. But deep within me is a struggle I thought I let go of months ago. I was angry at someone because of jealousy and envy. I checked myself and guilt turned into paranoia. I have a fear that what I was jealous of came around to their ears, resulting in treating me differently.
Of course I don’t know if this actually happened, hence; paranoia. I’ve felt distanced from my mom, and yet I treat her poorly sometimes. I realized now that I treat people inconsistently based on how they treat me. I also know that I love intensely when the emotions for it are strong. Then when they are weak, I disappear without a notice. I really believed that once I talked to God about these behaviors, He would magically take them away. I believed that with voicing and acknowledging my patterns, they were gone. But no, at the end of the day I am still selfish.
Jesus asked me questions regarding my weakness in speaking, distractions, and personal desires. It was all to have me see that I am on a balancing rope holding 2 futures. 2 paths per say. One, the laying down of my life, and gaining Christ. Two, the keeping of my life and letting go Christ. I have not reached the point, or maybe I have fallen from it, of which I believe in God’s plan and life for me. I do believe in Jesus, that He is the Son of God, who died for me and exchanged all my ugly for beauty. Graves into gardens.2
However, in Matthew 16:24 NKJV Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” I had an epiphany yesterday, putting what Jesus said all together. John the baptists, before Jesus was born said, “Prepare the way of the Lord”.3 This balancing act is draining me of air, to the point where I am losing sight of everything. It all feels out of balance because it is all out of balance. I cannot be for God while also be for myself.
Before I knew God, I had an imagination of what my life would be like, I had a pretty picture in my head based on what I had seen on pinterest, on ticktock, on instagram, in movies, in photos of my family or friends, you name it. I had a picture of what it would be like from books I read. And I made this picture my lifeline. The problem with this picture is that I don’t see any way of getting there. I am no longer the girl who drew this pretty picture, I don’t value the things in this picture anymore because my values changed. The core details of this picture, however, remain. The friendships I have kept. Some goals I have kept. Some adventurous dreams I have kept. The coolest thing about this picture is that I never had to give it up completely.
When I received Christ, He made it into a reality. One of my details was laughter with friends. I have this. Another is traveling around the world and then a hundred times again. I have this. My point? I realized that the laying down of my life -let him deny himself and take up his cross- is actually gaining it. Just like Jesus says. I perceived letting go of my ideas for my life, a loss, and something to mourn. I mourned to the point where I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let God operate the way He does. I limited Him. I was saving my life, but I was losing it, that’s why I felt suffocated. I felt like everything was loud inside of me, but on the outside I was quiet.
When John says, “Prepare the way of the Lord,”3 the Holy Spirit told me, your way is already prepared because God already made it.4 You are trying to prepare your own way when it is already done in God. Find Him and you will find your way.
I have been told by people, who themselves are growing up, by society, in signs, in stores and graffiti on walls, that “I make my own way”. I create my own path. However, I’ve always been lost on that whole “I make my own way” starting with I don’t know who I am or what I am good/not good at, so how I can I make my own way. Second, society is like a page with a million little words on it. You take one look at the page and instantly your brain is overflowed with information. At every turn you have something telling you what to like, who you are, what to strive for, what to hate, etc. I get dizzy just thinking about it.
So I would ask myself what category do I fit in? To what information do I resonate with? I appreciate the message of creating your own way because I can choose what I will be. No one is threatening me to be a specific thing, a right and freedom I have living in the United States. While in other countries, other girls/boys do not have that liberty. So I am thankful to live in a place where I am not forced to be one thing, but get to choose what I will be.
Unfortunately, I struggle with the next stepping stone, what am I? What will I be? For the longest time before I received Christ, I had no identity, in psychology we call it “sense of self”. I tried on different masks and costumes to try and find myself. I tried drugs to search for meaning. I bought lies in exchange for meaning.5 I faked struggles to find meaning. Everything I tried, left me empty.6 Even if something seemed like it fit. I even get the thought of what I would be like if I had left what seemed to fit on. I know it’s a lie, but I wonder if I would have reached that vision of what I envisioned myself being like? It’s tempting, but it’s a lie. I am tired of being lied to, so why lie to myself. Lies, especially lies that I tell myself, are just like physical self-harm. It has horrible effects, spiritually.
By Grace, I found my sense of self. By Grace I found what I was good at and not so good at. By Grace I found my personality, by Grace I found the pattern of my behavior and how to exchange them for beauty. In proverbs 16:9 NKJV Solomon says, “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs His steps.” I love this, yet fear this. With my personality changed, and receiving the gifts God gave me, I found myself. I realized I love school and now study diligently because I enjoy it so much. My heart has discovered all the gifts God made for me and with these gifts I plan a way.
Now the part I fear comes from insecurity. As I mentioned, I feel like a baby because I say to God, “why can’t You just do the whole thing?” I say this because I fear. I fear that I will make a mistake and mess up all the plans God has for me. My fear also manifests out of the fact that where I could take myself cannot begin to compare to where God will take me. If this is why I fear, why can’t that be enough to carry me? If I truly believed in this, why do I fear? That’s when Jesus pointed out to me that my lack of faith was limiting me and actually manifesting into fear. A lack of faith cannot produce what faith produces.
I sat there in the bathroom, ashamed of my lack of faith. I felt ashamed because I hold a certain expectation of myself. To be the person God knows I am. I want to believe in that girl so badly, yet I am afraid of failure that I trip myself. But again, my underlying desire is to be the girl God called by name. Can that be enough? I have so much fear in me, it’s suffocating. But the Holy Spirit, who hears the things of God7, has repeated to me, “you are enough, you are strong.”
Hebrews 11: 1 NLT “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is evidence of things we cannot see.”
Even though I can’t currently see the future God has for me, by Faith I have evidence, real proof, of the future God has formed for me. Faith is evidence of the future I am hoping for. Then everyone has faith, everyone who has hoped for something and has seen a reality of what can be, has experienced what faith can do.
I was once faith. My mom prayed for me for 6 years, those 6 years she was in a period where she could not see me. There was no reality of having me. Previously, my mom was taking injections to prevent her from being pregnant because at the age she was at, she did not want a child. She used the injections for 3 years and what they would do was target the ovum, resulting in an explosion of the egg. When she was ready to have a child the doctor informed her that the body gets used to what you put into it. Even though she had discarded the injections, whenever an ovum was released the body itself would kill the egg, so he told her that she would wait 5-15 years until her body recuperated.
But the reality was that in her state she would be unlikely to get pregnant. Despite all the news, at the beginning of the 6 years, God showed her that she would have me. This is faith. Faith is born here, when God shows you, the reality of what can be. Faith showed her the reality of one day having a child. Faith was therefore evidence of having me, even though she heard and saw that she would not have me.
I am evidence. I am evidence of faith. Omg. I am a result, I am proof, I am evidence of my mother having faith in God.
Now at 19, I have my own faith. I have my own reality shown to me by God of the things I hope for. I have evidence of this reality spiritually and I will one day have physical evidence of it. One of my favorite moments in the Bible was when God explained to Moses all the things he would do. And Moses responded with, “no you have the wrong guy, I cannot speak!”8 The WAY I resonate with him is crazy. Jump to Matthew and there’s a moment where Jesus goes to a mountain and Elijah and Moses speak with Him.9 My mind blew out of proportions because when God first talked to Moses before he brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, God saw Moses as the man speaking with Jesus and Elijah on that mountain.
God didn’t see him for his current disposition. A man who did not believe in himself or in God. A man who believed God was wrong. A man who believed he could not do the things God planned for him because he could not speak well. But God didn’t just see that. He saw a man who could. Who would bring His children out of oppression, who would guide and instruct His children. Who would be everything God said he was. I am like Moses, I have a lot of fear and a lot of weaknesses. I struggle with believing in myself and in God. Yet, God doesn’t see just that. He sees the girl I am created to be. I don’t know how to describe her because I don’t know her, but I know she is strong and she is enough. I have to be.
The word redeemed, is basically an exchange. It also means to compensate.
God tells me, “do not be afraid” and then He tells me why. My fear of failing, and making a mistake will be compensated by Him. When I do make a mistake, when I can’t fill in the gaps, He will.10 I am imperfect, I will make mistakes, I will fail. No matter how much it pains me, I will. And that’s okay. Because I will fail, with purpose. Not just oh I made a mistake let’s move on, but there will be an opportunity for me to gain something in return.
He will also exchange all my weaknesses for strength. My inabilities that cause me to fear, He will take and transform them into my greatest weapon.11 I fear because I don’t believe I am saved.12 I don’t believe that God has it all under control. When He says that He has called us by name, that’s intimate. He knows all of me, my imperfections, struggles, all my details. Yet He still called me. And then He said, “you are Mine.” A person who is so unworthy of receiving such love from God, who once you know, is just unimaginable.13 So unimaginable, you doubt, that He would say, “you are Mine.”
I felt like an outsider, like a blending into the wall, and this caused a whole storm of negative currents of my emotions. I’ve been in the place where you stand on a road, and there are 2 paths you can take. One where I go with the current and I wrack my brain with ideas on how to calm myself. The ideas I come up with are toxic and I know they end up with me being more dead. The other one, is where I fight the current. I go against everything I feel and I cry out to God.14 It’s where I wrack my brain for every verse I know to help me.15
I did this last night and even though I was reading my bible I felt nothing. So instead I held a conversation with God. I fell asleep and this morning I hungered for God.16 So I went to my favorite words. Isaiah 43. I opened my computer and just started typing, and God worked through me to settle all my discomfort. I am not all the sudden healed, of everything I just laid down. But I am currently facing it, all my pain is right in front of me and all my saving grace is right in front of me.
So I ask myself: what are you going to do about this? Do you wanna turn right or left? Yes one is more difficult than the other, that’s why Jesus called it the narrow way. “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” – Mathew 7:14 NLT
Index
1- Isaiah 43: 1 ESV
2- Ezekiel 37: 1-14 ESV
3- Mathew 3: 3 NKJV
4- Psalms 139: 16 AMP
5-Ezekiel 28: 16 AMP
6- 1 John 5: 12
7- 1 Corinthians 2: 10-11 NKJV
8- Exodus 4: 10-13 NLT
9- Mathew 17: 3 NLT
10- 2 Corinthians 12: 9 NKJV
11- Romans 12: 2 NLT
12- Acts of the Apostles 15: 11 NLT
13- Isaiah 40: 14, 18 NLT
14- Psalms 17: 6 NLT
15- Philippians 4: 8-9 NLT
16- John 6: 53- 56 NLT