In my first book,”The Front 9, Making Your Shots in Life Count,” I spend time in the second chapter highlighting our individual DNA. Our DNA is just one example, and a great one at that, of God’s specific fingerprint an anointing on our life. When you look at scripture, you find so much evidence that God created you to be YOU and no one else. As it states in scripture, in the book of Jeremiah, God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born…I set you apart.” (Jeremiah 1:5.) This doesn’t just apply to Jeremiah, it applies to everyone. Look at Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, some use the term “saved” or receiving salvation, we are guaranteed eternal life when we die. That is only the beginning. Then it is a surrendering of our will to God’s perfect will and designed plan for our lives. When we give our lives to Christ, God then goes to work. He gives us the Holy Spirit and begins to use our circumstances, no matter what those circumstances may be, to start to shape us into His image.
God’s primary goal is who I/you/we are becoming. It has everything to do with our character becoming more like God’s character! I don’t believe you “find yourself” until you find God. It starts there. The only way to discover who you are is to discover who God is because I/you/we are created by Him and in His image. (See Genesis 1:27.
Knowing Christ and yourself is like going on an archeological dig. It takes time, patience, intention and diligence to uncover gifts, talents. It takes time to grow in Christ and mature as we are in the process of becoming and achieving all that He created for me/you/us to be.
If you live as a stranger to yourself and God….it leads to a superficial and empty…life.
We cheat God and we cheat ourselves when we allow others and other things to narrate our lives for us. It becomes a “secondhand” life. One driven by external forces over which we have no control–others and their motives. Many times we allow influences of what others think we should be doing and pursuing fabricate us into a person we were not created to be.
To avoid the secondhand life and, instead, live our “created Purpose,” the FIRST Hand life, we have to seek a holy God. Understand–HE WILL SHOW US what He WANTS for us.
We all possess a uniqueness….that is unique to us out of the millions of people in the world. It is God’s desire for us to uncover what we may have buried beneath mistakes, insecurities we have acquired, lies we have believed, and labels we have been given and use it to develop ourselves according to His specific plan. “Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves.”–Robert Frost
In Jeremiah 29:11 it states, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ saith the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and give you a hope and a future.'” God’s plan is a hope and a future for all but we fail to do and live the next verses, “‘Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with ALL your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord…” (verses 12-14.)
Decide today to go on a “dig” with Christ. Discover His purpose and His plans for you. Celebrate the little “finds” and the “big finds!” God’s timing is perfect and scripture teaches, “He restores the years the locust have eaten away.” (See Joel 2:25.) He also will use everything for His good purposes, even our mistakes. He wants to use me/ you/us. Anticipate with excitement and a fresh set of eyes…what God allows you to uncover on the “dig!” “The greatest discoveries are those that shed light unto ourselves.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson