This year, I went down the list of things I'm thankful for...I took a deep sigh....and was truly grateful for something new this year. I'm thankful that I'm me. It's such a counter-intuitive thing to feel because the world tells you that you haven't arrived or you're not the person you've wanted to become, that you need
more----more stuff, experiences, intelligence. Things that make up your self-worth. None of those things are inherently bad, it's when you feel
less than who God made you to be----always pining after something when God is perfectly delighted in who you are now.
Deep at the heart of being thankful is being content in your circumstances, and in your identity. This means accepting yourself as you are, and not making excuses for any limitations that you have. It's loving yourself in your own skin, and actually liking the things about you---even though you know those things don't necessarily measure up to others.
This world is a hard place because as humans we are hard-wired to be relational and with that comes this need to be accepted, and to be loved, to be safe, to be connected, and to be significant and valued. The problem with that is we need others to make us feel that way about ourselves.
And what we desire from others we don't get because those others are usually doing the same dance---fearing rejection and never truly able to give you those things. This deep fear also keeps us avoiding people, that at an unconscious level, somehow won't give us what we need---unconditional acceptance. And it's usually people who are different from us. Right, it's easy to stay in our comfortable huddles, but risk going out there and getting hurt----not so easy.
This is where the beauty of the gospel kicks in. It's obvious that God doesn't want us walking around in fear and having an identity crisis. Or wanting anything more to define us because He knows if we continue down that path, we'll never stop wanting. This was not the way He designed it. The bible says He knew us before we were knit together in our mother's womb, that we were perfectly and wonderfully made and that the maturing and sanctifying process is not about how we'll be accepted by everyone else, but that we will become more and more like Him.
In many ways, this is so freeing---to know that we don't need others to give us that significance when we were made to have our identity satisfied and fulfilled in Him. And in His economy, less is more. "When I am weak, then I am strong---the less I have the more I depend on Him." It's a unique tension---to feel weak, but yet feel so strong in the Lord that you actually like being weak in yourself. When's the last time anyone thought weakness was a good thing?
It's important to know, too, that Jesus had a core group of people he loved, and loved him. He had a big group of twelve, but He spent more time and had deeper connections with
three. When He wasn't spending quality time with those He loved, He was out there unafraid. Jesus was with all the wrong people: the outcasts, the sick, the poor, the needy, the socially unacceptable, the super-educated snobs. The truth is that He was never challenged about who He was. His identity was always tied to who His father was.
When I have my identity in my Father, I know that I am deeply loved, deeply valued, deeply accepted. I am irreplaceable. I need the few around me to love me and affirm me, but I need to be challenged to love others who are different from me. This Perfect Love casts out all fear. This is how He would have wanted it.
