Who are you?
A few weeks ago, I watched a message by Sarah Jakes Roberts entitled “Eat Like a King”. She came from 1 Samuel 9:16-24. I’d highly suggest that you go take a listen when you get a chance. As a matter of fact, I’ll do you a favor and post the direct YouTube link here. There are so many themes and lessons that can be extracted from this text but the primary take away for me (as an advocate for wholistic beauty) was the importance of identity. To give you some context and build up to the purpose of this blog entry, I want to share my personal journal entry based on that message below.
Receiving challenges your insecurities in that it challenges your perspective of who you know yourself to be at present. In the scripture, the prophet Samuel’s instruction for Saul to walk ahead of him was preparation for him to begin walking like a king. Under normal circumstances, Samuel should’ve been walking ahead of Saul because of his role/status/title. Figuratively speaking, walking ahead of the prophet was a form of receiving honor. Honor that Saul didn’t quite feel comfortable with or worthy of because he wasn’t a king or of elite status...yet. When Samuel spoke of Israel’s desire for him as king, Saul responded saying: “am I not a member of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? Is my family not the least of all the tribes of Benjamin? Why would you say this to me?”. This could easily translate to: don’t honor me with your words/speak so highly of me because I don’t feel worthy of receiving such honor. I don’t see myself the way you’re speaking of me.
Later in the text Samuel gives Saul the meat that had been set apart in wait of his arrival. Saul then eventually eats with Samuel and the other elite folk that were present and accepts the reality that although he would technically be considered the least qualified (based on lineage and where he comes from) his God-given identity as future king took precedence over his perception of who he was.
Many times those that struggle with low self-esteem or a poor perception of themselves have no problem giving. Why? Because, although they may never articulate it like this, they often attribute their worth with their ability to do for others. They view it as serving others diligently when it’s really a misguided attempt to boost their view of themselves. Receiving, however, challenges the fact that they don’t see themselves as being worthy of accepting the same effort they would put forth for another. They don’t feel worthy or deserving of the effort or help so they often shew it away so as not to have to deal with that feeling of not being worthy enough. Others will busy themselves to the point of burnout so as not to have to sit in that reality. Wow! Sit and deal.
Question, how many times has God called you something to which you did not answer? How many doors of opportunity did you close because you convinced yourself that you weren’t good enough - or ready as we sometimes say? How many times have you had hindsight thoughts realizing you missed a great thing simply because your perception of who you are and what you can have was off? Do you, like Saul, find yourself questioning it when someone speaks highly of you? You’re not alone. But the good thing is when we can be honest enough with ourselves to acknowledge that there is an identity issue, we can then begin to shed light on the lies that we have believed that have altered our perspective of our true identity. In doing so, we are then able to adopt a Godly confidence in place of the old. When we do that we are able to give, receive, and serve from a pure place. We also open ourselves up to being able to receive the exceedingly and abundantly that God desires to give us.
I want to challenge you to begin changing your language to make it line up with who God says that you are. It matters not how dysfunctional your upbringing may have been. It matters not how many bad decisions you’ve made. To be honest, your titles and degrees, although purposeful, aren’t even what matters. What’s important is that we find and embrace our God-given identity in lieu of those things. So I ask… who are you?
