And you would see what I mean if you peeked behind cupboard doors, counted my junk drawers (and then tried to search for birthday candles), looked in my closets (I have a shoe problem), checked under the beds (dust bunnies, boxes, and missing socks), and in my brain (scary).
Perfect kept me bound to people-pleasing tendencies, daily self-recrimination, and side-stepping to the throne of God rather than walking boldly in to receive his grace.
I’ve expanded my original series because there are too many of us hiding behind a gossamer shield of perfect and that is no protection.
The Kicking Perfect ebook is a seven day journey to “Kicking Perfect” out of our life. Each day includes a devotional reading, scripture references, and reflection and life-application questions.
I’ve also created bonus content that you won’t find in the ebook: A Scripture and Coloring Journal to correspond with Kicking Perfect. In it you will find places to journal your responses to the reflection and application questions along with a coloring page highlighting the key idea of the day’s reading.
The ebook “Kicking Perfect” is free on Amazon and iTunes.
The Bonus Content is a pdf file and you will receive the download link as a thank-you gift for subscribing. You can access the Kicking Perfect Bonus Content by clicking here.
I have some cycles I need to break in my life and I’ve discovered that the more I welcome grace into my life the more power I have to overcome the attitudes, behavior, and the past that would love to have it’s way in my life.
Do you have cycles you would like to break? Is transformation by the renewing of your mind a two-steps forward, one step back kind of dance? Would you like to journey with me down this path of breaking cycles and welcoming grace?
I would be honored if you would allow me to journey with you and offer you weekly encouragement.
I’m good at bravado, but not so much at living brave. I know how to stand tall and smile with the best of them, but inside I’m cowering, hiding tears, insecure, wondering if I belong or even if I’m wanted.
I know verses. I know that if I’m full of God then there’s no room for anything else. I know that my song is God’s song. I know that he is my refuge, my shield, and my fortress. I know he holds me close and sings songs over me. I know he calls me chosen, beloved, secure, approved, and beautiful. I know all these things and I was so mad at myself for the disconnect between my head and my heart.
I’m one of those people who have a tendency to save things. I save those extra buttons that come with new shirts, but don’t ask me where I put them because I don’t know. I save gifts I’ve been given, even when I’ve outgrown the use of the item. I save gift bags to reuse, but not tissue paper because that’s just too much work. I save cards with heartfelt handwritten words from friends so when I forget my worth, I have a reminder.
Some would call me a packrat, and I would agree. I had the messiest room as a kid and underneath my bed was the best place to lose items and never to see them again. As an adult, my house might appear different, but if you opened closet doors and peeked under my bed, you would see I haven’t changed too much. I keep thinking I should get organized and clean things up and throw things away, but it’s hard.
I can’t seem to sustain any system for long so I end up on these purging binges. This might seem awesome–the crazy packrat lady is actually throwing things away–but I take it too far. I do get rid of things I don’t need, but I get rid of things I still need. I can’t seem to find the right combination of throwing things away and keeping things. And if I put something in a “safe” place it’s as good as thrown away because I can’t remember where I put it.
I see these tendencies in my heart as well. I keep behaviors and patterns of thought that should have been thrown out of my life. I cling to my belief that maybe this love of God is really too good to be true, and I might just wake up and be thrown away so I hold myself back from him.
But this holding of myself back has consequences as well.
“The most important [commandement] is, ‘Here, O Isreal: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31 NIV
When I hang onto disbelief, it’s hard to love God with everything I am. When I cling to resentment, bitterness, or unforgiveness, loving him and others is not possible because these things stand in the way of giving myself totally and completely to Him.
I’m learning to live aware of the state of my heart because I know that resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness harms me more than it harms anyone else. It also makes it difficult to fulfill the second commandment: “Love my neighbor as myself.”
When I’m judgmental of myself, I judge others.
When I’m annoyed with myself, I’m annoyed with other’s.
When I’m disgusted over my own actions, it’s easy to be disgusted over someone else’s actions.
How I feel about myself reflects on how well I love others. If I don’t love myself, I can’t love my neighbor. If we could see ourselves the way God sees us–through eyes of love, then loving our neighbors would be easy.
But it’s not. We know our weaknesses. We know our flaws. We know this journey to holiness is a lifelong journey, and we know the battle between the sin nature and the spirit nature rages within.
Loving ourselves has to start with loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and body. This is where we learn that we are lovable because as we love God we begin to see things his way. I know I’m flawed. I know perfection is a myth. I know my weaknesses, but I know I’m strong when I trust in God. I know my flaws can become facets that reflect his glory. I know that in him I am made complete.
If I can look at myself in a mirror and remember these things, I can actually love my neighbor well. Beth Moore writes in Believing God, “My obedience flowed directly from my faith to believe I was who God said I was even when I didn’t feel like it.”
There are times I don’t feel like I am who God says I am, but I choose to believe it because I want to obey his commands of loving him with everything that is within me and loving my neighbor as myself.
Loving myself doesn’t mean that I get to go buy the latest pair of shoes I have my eyes on, or the purse that’s simply amazing. It doesn’t mean being selfish with my “me” time. It doesn’t mean that I get what I want when I want it. Loving myself doesn’t mean I put my needs and wants above others.
Loving myself means embracing the truth of what God says about me so that God can use me to reveal himself to others.
Loving myself means allowing God to transform me into a truer reflection of himself and going smaller so that he can go bigger.
When I struggle with loving my neighbors, the struggle can usually be traced back to my thought-life about myself. When I’m rattle with insecurity, I’m ruled by fear in my relationships. When I’m overtaken by a tongue that throws sharp darts, it’s usually because my thought-life is filled with sharp and unkind words.
The struggle to love is true and real. It’s evidenced all around us in our world, our communities, and our homes. But what if we all determined to love God with our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies, and let him change us from the inside out and to love ourselves as he loves us–beloved children, made for a purpose that only we can fill, righteous, holy, and reflectors of him to this world. If we did, loving our neighbor as ourselves might become a little easier.
I recorded a special video greeting detailing the one thing that I always come back to every December. It has helped me face the difficult Decembers, it has helped settle me when the busyness threatens to overwhelm, and it has helped keep me focused through it all.
God is so gracious and so good; He truly is Emmanuel!
Acceptance, Security, and Significance is the three legged stool that makes up our identity. My weakest “leg” is the one labeled significant.
I look at my little ol’ life and see a stay at home mom who rarely gets regular showers, a crazy homeschooler who receives the stink eye way too often, a wanna be author with dreams of a book in my local bookstore. My kitchen sink is never empty, I raise dust bunnies, my bed gets made fifty percent of the time, and my kitchen island collects life’s clutter. I don’t see significance when I look at my life.
God’s definition of significance transforms my understanding of it. Significance is not about being noticed or an empty kitchen sink. It’s not even a bed made with the blankets hanging evenly along the side (mine are quite crooked, thank-you very much).
It’s not even having thousands of people read these words or buy my “some-day books.”
Significance means becoming smaller so God can become bigger. It’s about less me so more God-honoring fruit grows so other’s can experience the harvest for his purpose. It’s realizing that this life isn’t about positioning myself for my idea of success. But how I position myself to be used for God’s kingdom. In order to do that I must go lower and lower so he increases higher and higher.
I must let go of the unspoken, yet very loud, expectations that pressure me. A clean house? Perfect children? Harmonious marriage? Successful blog? My success or failure in my roles as a wife, mother, housekeeper, teacher, or writer cannot dictate my significance.
That dream? The one that involves words on a page and my name on the spine? My significance doesn’t change whether that dream simply stays this wonderful, glow-y kind of dream. And the even more secret dream—of leading worship for women’s conferences, and leading tender hearts into the most precious presence of God? Guess what? My significance doesn’t change whether I’m leading 8 or 800.
My heart, my life, and my innermost being grows most significant when placed in the tender hands of my most loving God as he shapes and molds for his purpose and position. Even when I’m feeling as though I’m not seen, and as long as I stay a living, willing sacrifice, I know without a shadow of doubt that God looks at me and sees me as significant.
But it’s one thing to know this on a surface level, it’s a completely different to accept this on a heart level where it gets lived out on a daily, moment by moment level.
But these verses in Ephesians and Philippians show us how to live out our acceptance, security, and significance.
“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.” Ephesians 3:12 ESV
“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13 ESV
I cannot convince myself of my acceptance, security or significance because I cannot positive self-talk to myself enough to break through the lies my heart believes. I’ve tried. And the failure feeds the lies.
It’s only when I take my weakness to God that I find the strength I need to embrace the Truth of what he says about me:
Beloved.
Chosen.
Accepted.
Purposed.
Significant.
Special.
Priceless.
Receiving our identity in Christ happens the moment we receive Christ as our Savior. But living out our identity with him takes steps of faith and trust that he will rewrite our negative thought patterns into thoughts based on his truth.
It’s this process that makes our lives beautiful and colorful and oh so worth the wrestling. There’s nothing more beautiful than a woman, who has never felt loved or chosen, then when her eyes light with the Holy Fire of God’s truth as it sinks into her heart and rewrites what her past has taught and told her who she is. As the profound truth penetrates her heart, the strongholds fall and God rushes in and beauty is wrought from the rubble.
It’s like the butterfly’s metamorphosis. Beauty unfurls and beauty is you as you embrace the struggle of owning your significance in Christ. Let go of self-sabotage and trust the truth God declares over you.
Many years ago, I was Women’s Ministry President, Children’s Ministry Director, and a Youth Sponsor—all at the same time. It was exhausting and in the midst of the busyness I realized I had forgotten how to sit at Jesus’ feet and just be.
So I finished out my term as Women’s Ministries president and declined reelection. I found a replacement for the Children’s Ministry and informed the youth pastor I could no longer be a sponsor.
I thought this “learning to be” would be easy, but it was not. I had looked to my roles and the spotlight as indicators of my significance, and with nothing to do, my heart panicked.
Identity is so much more than my roles, reputations, accomplishments, past, present, or future. Through faith I’m believing that I’m accepted and secure in Christ. Although there’s still an internal wrestling, especially on days when I’d rather give up and move to the wilds of Alaska, except for the snow thing and the dark days.
But this significance thing? I still don’t have it figured out. Significance and pride are so interwoven in my heart that it takes the grace of God to unwind. I’m writing and living from that tangled place.
The desire for significance is not an ungodly desire, but I make it ungodly when I chase after success in my roles, approval ratings, and reputation. Only God can fulfill my desire for significance and it’s only when I began exploring God’s definition of significance that I discovered three areas that, when combined together, make significance simple to understand.
Part 1 of significance is tied to our purpose and it’s only when we embrace our purpose— as defined by God— that we can grasp part 2 of our significance, which is our position:
Ephesians 2:6, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” NIV
1 Corinthians 3:16, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives in you?” NIV
2 Corinthians 5:17-21, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” NIV
I am God’s temple, but it’s not about me.
After I die to my own sins, God raises me up and seats me with Christ, not so I can lord it over people, but to serve.
God makes me a new creation and pours his grace over my life, not so I can be blessed, but so that I can effectively be his minister of reconciliation to a lost and dying world.
My purpose is tied to my position. I am not in this world for my own pleasure and happiness, although I have a great deal of things that make me happy and bring me pleasure, like sharing song and words and beauty, but ultimately I have been given a position that needs good fruit.
Our position as God’s ministers is to make him known and to reconcile the world to him. But we can’t do this if we don’t know him or understand our identity in him.
This is where I can scare myself into inaction because the gravity and responsibility of this position is weighty. It also explains why I sometimes flat out refuse to take the next steps in growth in my Christian walk.
All those years ago, God was calling me to let go of my positions so that I could sit at his feet and begin to understand the significance that he calls me to, but I was scared to obey. I liked being in charge and having “important” things to do. I wrestled with giving up my positions in the church because I was afraid of losing significance. What I gained out of the perceived loss of significance was the beginning of the journey to truly embracing my identity in Christ.
As I took the time to be in his presence rather than be busy in his church, my definition of significance was replaced with his. Bearing fruit and serving others through the ministry of reconciliation is a gift.
It’s a weighty gift because I know how hard it is to stay grafted to the vine and engaged with culture. I know that if I reject the position God has called me to be as his temple and as his minister, that the purpose of bearing good fruit is pointless.
There will be times when we’re tempted to find our significance in other things, we’ll misrepresent God to the world, and we’ll do and say things that are opposed to his holy righteousness. Our purpose and position can feel impossible to accomplish. But it is possible and we find the key to success in the final area of significance.
When we combine the three aspects of significance we will find that fulfilling our purpose and position is accomplishable. Till next time.
