Just Be 30-Day Challenge
Just BE – Day 29
Webster says ‘Be’ means to exist or live; to take place, happen or occur; to occupy a place or position
Synonyms: transpire; do, prevail, endure, act, persist, rest, stay, continue, live, breathe, remain
GOD says in Psalm 139:1-16, ‘Lord, you know everything there is to know about me. You perceive every movement of my heart and soul, and you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind. You are so intimately aware of me, Lord. You read my heart like an open book and you know all the words I’m about to speak before I even begin a sentence! You know every step I will take before my journey even begins. You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way, and in kindness you follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past. With your hand of love upon my life, you impart a blessing to me. This is just too wonderful, deep and incomprehensible! Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength. Where could I go from your Spirit? Where could I run and hide from your face? If I go up to heaven, you’re there! If I go down to the realm of the dead, you’re there too! If I fly with wings into the shining dawn, you’re there! If I fly into the radiant sunset, you’re there waiting! Wherever I go, your hand will guide me; your strength will empower me. It’s impossible to disappear from you or to ask the darkness to hide me, for your presence is everywhere, bringing light into my night. There is no such thing as darkness with you. The night, to you, is as bright as the day; there’s no difference between the two. You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside, and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord! You even formed every bone in my body when you created me in the secret place, carefully, skillfully shaping me from nothing to something. You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in your book (TPT).’
It is a great gift to me to just be.
I didn’t always think this way. I wasted so much time striving to be somebody else, somebody I was not. You know…the grass always growing greener on the other side of the road. My eyes were bigger than my bank account. I was writing checks my body couldn’t cash, making decisions for a future beyond my pay grade. All those things out of reach. I am so grateful the Lord got my attention before even more of my life seeped down the drain.
I wanted to share what I found with you too in case you find yourself exhausted by all the stigmas and brands of this life. In case you feel like just another statistic. In the event you are overwhelmed every time you turn on your phone’s screen to find the rest of the world enjoying perfect vacations on bedazzled beaches wearing a beautiful and skinny new body in a brand new wardrobe with gleefully smiling children and a star-crossed mate. What I found were words of wisdom wrapped neatly in the beautiful ability to set me free.
My Master Creator, the Author of my story, the Designer of my destiny, the Fashioner of my freedom dreamt me into existence, weaving together the intimate details of my being to create who I would ‘be’! He not only saw me inside my mother’s womb, but He also secretly knew me before I even took my first breath. I believe He knew me in that secret place in case my (real) mother could not know me; at least I would be known by someone, by the God of the Universe. He knew who I would be and whose I would be and how I would look and where I would go and what I would do with the breath He breathed into my lungs. He knew that although He would build within me an innate capability to be able to make choices and decisions for myself, on my behalf He chose to keep the hands that He formed me with hovering over me for immediate assistance when I decided to cry out to Him for help. While He was artistically forming everything else about me, He also assured that I would never be too far from His sight. Finally, this God, who also created the universe when He dreamed of me, understands me; He gets me.
So while I was spending all of my time trying to reinvent a better me, He was spending His time trying to help me, well, just ‘be’. While I was hating me, He was loving me. While I was squeezing my eyes shut to images of myself that I didn’t want to see, He was opening His eyes, lovingly gazing at me through the lens of His son. While I was self-inflicting harm and self-medicating my grief, He was healing the nailprint wounds His Son bore on His hands and feet for me that would relieve forever my sin and shame. While I was looking for me, He was finding me, and when I was lost, He was pursuing me, nudging me to be found in Him. He was continually putting all the pieces of me back together.
It all comes down to a place of acceptance, this matter of me choosing to just be who He created me to be. I could chase all the ways to remake me, to become a someone other than who He created, but inherently I would always lack joy, experience dissatisfaction and be searching for the me, the intricately knitted me, He made to be.
Day 29 Challenge: How are ways that you, dear sister, can see your self through God’s eyes instead of your own or the eyes of this world? Sometimes visualizing positive traits about ourselves are ways we can be reminded how our Creator sees us.
