Your weight does not define you.
Your skin color does not define you.
Your gender does not define you.
Your sexuality does not define you.
Your friends do not define you.
Your family does not define you.
Your successes do not define you.
Your failures do not define you.
Your present circumstances do not define you.
You past does not define you.
Your mistakes do not define you.
Your struggles do not define you.
Your sin does not define you.
Jesus defines you.
This is a letter a friend of mine wrote to update people about what she had been up to for the past 6 months. Even though it’s not addressed specifically to you, there is a lot you can learn from what she’s gone through:
I remember being in a church service one day, and starting to imagine what it would be like if I had no where or no one to return to after that morning. What would I do if I had nothing after the moment I walked out? What would any of us do if everything we knew and was familiar with was all of a sudden non existent? I realized in that moment that my identity did not have to be based on my surroundings. I remember answering the question with “I would trust Life to bring me where I needed to be.”
Because of the nature of this letter I can see now how ridiculous my decision-making process seems. I will not deny it. I’m fickle. And can be pretty whimsical. I laugh at it myself.
Sometimes.
I think I’ve been seeking the right heart in it though. I’m open for correction.
I think.
I’ve made a vague analysis that, sometimes, being in such a small community of people (i.e. family, church, school, or even a city), our mindsets become small too. What’s important to us shifts. Our goals in personal development is usually based on the influence around us. And when those around us think small, even those of us who are completely aware of it, downsize our own standards to fit the ecosystem that we’ve been presented with.
I did that.
In my observation obscure fashion, social hierarchies, and Facebook pictures has become far more important than what we’re all actually saying. Fleeting loyalties, typically unfulfilled desire for importance, and bad romance has taken precedent for what should really be there. We never find what we’re really looking for because in community (no matter which one we’re in) we have the freedom to let others think for us. Which is generally not bad; I think we need accountability. Although, it becomes a mindless thing when we forget who we are apart from it.
It becomes a bad thing when we feel small in the midst of it. In our humanness we need to feel powerful (which I don’t think is bad), but in our primal mindsets (which, yes, is definitely bad) pat each other on the head, or lack eye contact as we take our well-seasoned indie-hip “knowing” and lord it over each other. Instead of celebrating each other, we puff ourselves up with our artistries, what ever they may be. We learn how to become the character that everyone is looking for. We fool our selves into fooling to foolish!
I have discovered that there is real heart buried in it all, somewhere. I’m sure of it. But I don’t think many of us really know what we’re exerting our energy towards, and even if we do, I don’t understand why we’re choosing to level off where we do. We all just need to find our personal “hide-dive” and jump.
So this is where I decided to embark. In my hormonal, irrational, yet pure intent I decided that if I’m going to have any sort of meaning that it was going to be apart from the external monologues that I felt like society was writing for me. Even my name had become my demise. People knowing me as that sweet quirky asian girl has put a disconnect between my perceived character, and who I really was. Someone put it a good way when they said “it’s like having a thousand people to wave hello to, but none of them really knowing who you are.”
That’s far from what I’ll ever want in life. I learned that from my mom. I’m not looking for shallow interactions, or flowery words. I don’t want flattering gestures or vivid images that don’t really say anything. I want to know how and who you really are, and I’d like you want the same for me.
To whomever may be reading this, I’m learning. I know that I haven’t been completely on the ball with the decisions I’ve made. But I’m trying. And you’re beautiful to me, it’s ridiculous. I believe in you. I have been hurt in the midst of figuring these things out, but only because I knew that what I was living in wasn’t real life. I knew that I needed to figure out what that really was.
I left St. Pete in the middle of January to Clearwater. This is where my dissolution with society began. I stayed with one of my best child-hood friends, Patience Melton, for about a month and a half. Good things happened here. The understanding of my “uncultured” self became more noticeable to me. The momentum for my season of wandering started here, and I’m so thankful for that.
Then I was flown out for two weeks to California to live with some people I met online (who heavily influenced me in all the right ways over the last three to four years). There I learned a lot about what true fellowship looked like, and how it felt to be around people who genuinely loved without inhibitions or selfish motives. I realized a lot about myself in this time, too. I started to shake off a lot off the bad ways I had perceived people and my interactions with them. It was literally like a light being switched on. Or my bulb was screwed into the right socket. That experience gave me much more than I was aware of at the time. It planted in me something that I would have never seen grow into my life other wise.
When I came back to Clearwater I lived in an intentional church community for about five weeks.This became a nest for me. I felt I had been in waiting the entire time I was there. It was hard though, at this point in my life I was heavily being confronted with doubt, especially when it came to people. I was so desperately trying to find my place within a group of people that I exhausted myself into bad place in heart. A place of striving. I was trying really hard to recreate what I had experienced in California that I dealt with a lot of disappointment (in myself and in those around me). To me, it felt like everybody could see all my short comings, like everything I did was wrong. For whatever reason I felt so much shame. Anyways! At this point, I was going back and forth between deciding if I should move to Orlando or stay in where I was. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to make it by myself without the community. I doubted my ability to make decisions. I also grew more and more weary of constantly walking on eggshells I seemed to have thrown before me.
It took a lot for me to get to the place of deciding this. But I did, through all the toil, end up leaving.
Now I’m here, in Orlando. I’ve been here since April 19th. I have trusted Life to bring me where I needed to go. I’ve been living with people who have eased me back into being myself. More and more I’ve been able to conquer my habit of feeling out of place. I work, and eat, and sleep in a place that I would have never ever thought to be a home. I don’t really know anyone out here, I’ve found that my truest connections still live despite the distance between us. I’ve also learned a lot about meeting people where they’re at. The buds of relationships here are healthy ones. I feel as though I’ve walked into a place that was expecting me. Opportunities and possibilities are consistently meeting me. They’re kind, and feel like gifts from Someone who knows me really, really well.
I’ve been experiencing what it is to be seen, and to be deeply loved. By God and man. I can’t help that this was cultivated in the nights I spent crying over the disconnect that resonated so deeply in myself and others. I feel my desire for real life has stirred me up and moved me into this place I find myself now. My heart is to move forward in what I’m created to do. To run full of vision and desire. To live and love boundlessly. To inspire goodness, and happiness, and satisfaction. We all are created to dwell in that. We’re supposed to be in a perpetual state of deep joy.
We’re unsatisfied. Even if we’re not aware of it now… we’re going to come to the place where we are. Where we realize that our efforts have proven themselves pointless. Especially as we’ve tried to promote ourselves in the smallness of our thinking. We were created to flourish in peace that passes our understanding. We’re supposed to be powerful and have great influence. We’re created to be beautiful and have the desires of our heart. To shine. And create. And inspire. All of creation groans to see the revealing of true Humanity. That’s how our Creator intended it to be.
So I say all of this to say: I can feel and have felt your existence, and you’re not a ghost to me anymore. It’s taken me becoming one to finally see that.
[video]
[video]
What you do, what you have done, what has happened, what just happened
DOES. NOT. DEFINE.
The biggest lie you can believe is that your habits from yesterday will forever carry on into tomorrow.
—-
Your failures from yesterday determine your worth.
What it sounds like:
“You failed, that means you’re a failure, doomed to repeat it again.”
How it affects you if you believe it:
All of those are symptoms of believing the lie that you are the sum of your mistakes/failures, or that your “yesterday” will determine your “tomorrow.”
Truth:
You failed, but that doesn’t determine who you are, nor does it reflect upon your worth.
How it affects you if you believe it:
Some people get so caught up in their past, fearful that it will determine their future that they never live in the present.
You are not the summation of your past. Circumstance and people do not define you. Your preferences and the ‘feelings’ you have don’t define you.
[video]
“Knowing How to Think Empowers You Far Beyond Those Who Know Only What to Think.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (via diplateevo)
We can only feel hopeless if we have listened to the one who speaks hopelessness.
The opposite is true as well.
[video]
“
We only preach rules and behavior modification when we don’t trust God to change and transform hearts.
Micro managing behavior only works until people are exasperated and they quit all together.
Proclaim the transforming power of a new creation in the grace of God and watch people transform and become Christlike before your eyes without ever having to police their lives.
So much easier!
” — Alex Perez (via loveismycommandment)(via lightcolour)
//
In the Christian life, you do not work to become righteous. You are born righteous.
(via favoredgrace)
If the institution of ‘church’ didn’t exist, I think most people wouldn’t even know how to direct their Christian life because they’ve become so dependent on a system for a relationship.
Unfortunately, we’ve been so conditioned to depend on it that we almost believe that it’s impossible to know God outside of the institution of church. Some actually think, “Wow you haven’t been to church for 2 weeks, are you spiritually dying? Are you ok? How are you surviving?!”
I understand, because I used to think that as well. I thought no one was capable of ‘surviving’ without being dependent on a pastor or another spiritual leader.
Jesus actually thought differently.
He said that the Holy Spirit will “lead you into all Truth”, and that “He will show you things to come”, and “He will abide forever.” (John 16)
We’re taught that we will never understand what God has in store for us, or that we can’t comprehend His greatness, His love for us, or the extent of our inheritance through Christ… yet it says it’s been given to us to KNOW. (Luke 8:10, 1 Cor 2:10-12)
I think it’s been drilled in us to be so dependent on others that we never actually become dependent on God Himself.
In 1 John 2:27, it says that the “anointing that you have received from the Holy One abides… and you do not need that anyone teach you.”
That’s a vastly different message than what I heard growing up in church. I heard that I need leadership, I need community, I need accountability or else I was sure to fail.
I’m definitely not saying “SCREW OTHER PPL. SCREW LEADERSHIP/COMMUNITY.”
I’m saying there’s a huge difference between “needing community” because you’ll die without it, and “wanting community” because you understand the value of like-minded fellowship and being able to sharpen one another.
The point is that we mature and become primarily dependent on God (our Father) as our source of Life and growth, not people. People (the body) should be complimentary, it should be a catalyst, and we should want it, but I think the line is crossed when we’re taught that we’ll die without it… it simply isn’t what Jesus intended.
[video]
People never know how to respond when you reply with scripture and bring everything back to the work of the cross. Especially when they realize that you’re standing on something solid and they’re never going to move you.
“Judgment in Isaiah!”
Forgiveness in Jesus.
“Separation in Adam!”
Reconciliation in Jesus.
“Yeah, but Adam sinned!”
But Jesus didn’t.
“Because of Adam we’re sinners!”
Because of Jesus we’re the righteousness of God.
“Yeah, but we have to fulfill the commandments of the Law!”
Jesus fulfilled them, and canceled them by nailing them to the cross.
“What about Job?”
What about Jesus?
“David said to pant for God as a deer pants for water!”
Jesus said you will never thirst again.
“But…”
Nope. No “buts”, just Jesus. :)
- Daniel Silva
“Stop the mindless wishing that things would be different. Rather than wasting time and emotional and spiritual energy in explaining why we don’t have what we want, we can start to pursue other ways to get it.” — Greg Anderson