A Friendly Morning Reminder: You Are Not God
Author / tracycpoetry
What Do You Hide Behind?
An #InstaPrayer for deliverance from the perfectionism we hide behind….
It’s the messy and imperfect times in our lives that mold us the most and sometimes bring the most beauty. So why is it that we work so hard to create “perfection” (whatever the heck that is)?
These thoughts began during the #WeekendExperience at my Amazing Church. It was a beautiful morning full of #GodEncounters as we took the time to #HearGodSpeak with and through each other. However, I had a little angst when something was spoken to me and in resonated in me instructing me not to “hide behind my words”. As I pondered this (a.k.a. pouted over it) I was thinking, “I don’t hide behind hide words! I’m a communicator and a writer! Of course I use a lot of carefully crafted words! It’s one of my gifts!”. However, the more I thought about it… the more I realized that your gift can become your curse when – rather than using it authentically – you use it as a tool for unhealthy perfectionism in vain attempts to create “perfect” moments or to self-protect (“skirt around” the real issues) during difficult conversations.
I’m blogging about this because I have a feeling I’m not the only one who has struggled in this area. Your gift may not be words. It may be fashion or culinary creating, for instance. But the fashionista becomes a captive of her own craft when it becomes more than her creative expression and she refuses to leave the house or FaceTime with a friend until she has that “perfect” look. And the chef loses joy in his creating when he tosses a well-loved recipe aside because of one harsh review.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that your gift can become a god/idol to you and God’s really not cool with that. (See Exodus 20:3. And while you’re in your #BibleApp, check out all the times in Psalms when God is referred to as our rock and our refuge…. Not anything we do or have or anyone we know…. #GodAlone).
So… let’s just live, love, and share our gifts… perhaps before that 100th rewrite or rework in our heads of that conversation, outfit, or meal. Or, as it’s been said, “Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good”. When you allow your gift to become your source of security – you’re risking it becoming a clumsy, uncomfortable, even destructive crutch rather than the beautiful life-giving blessing it’s meant to be.
And, as I do through my Amazing Church, professional counseling/life-coaching, and in support groups with others on journeys similar to mine, be sure to position yourself in places of authentic connection where you can learn more about yourself through relationship with God and others. It takes the eyes of others to see yourself clearly sometimes.
Ok, that’s enough words shared for now. And this time I’m not hiding behind them – but revealing a part of my heart through them. That’s what words are for.
Let’s become who we already are… together.
Crafted Together for HIS Glory
So, this verse came up in my Bible reading today. And, as I often do when something moves me, I #GoogleIt. (I know…. you were expecting something deep like meditate or prophesy. But, no. You got Google 😉).
My Google search led me to the picture of the lovely crown you see here. But this picture became more meaningful because as I was Googling, I was listening to a prayer call by incredible inspirational teacher and Amazing Church #WorshipPastor, Barbara Calloway. She was talking about the #HolySpirit and specifically the importance of #unity.
Here’s something she said: “Break out of your comfort zone and decide you are going to be unified together”. As words and thoughts of unity hung in the early morning air, I continued to stare at the picture on my screen. As I looked at the beautiful crown, I realized that – although a pile of diamonds would be a site to behold – this artistic work of jewelry is so amazing and even more valuable because the individual stones have been crafted together into one beautiful masterpiece.
In the same way that the uncrafted pile of diamonds was easy and effort-free, the introverted and conflict-avoiding version of me finds it easier to stay a “lone diamond” capturing a little glimmer of my Father’s light all on my own. But if I press through past the awkward seasons and difficult conversations that are eventually and inevitably part of every healthy relationship, how much more beauty, value, and #GodLight will be reflected in the unified whole of so many different and precious individuals! I think we’ll find it worth the effort. And I think we already know that our God is so very worthy of being crowned with our beautiful unity.
Time to Reframe
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” –Romans 8:37
A Simple Prayer for Healing
A Mother’s Day Confession
So…. I have a confession to make. In recent years I’ve not been much of a fan of Mother’s Day. You see, my beautiful Mother has been in Heaven several years now and my husband and I have no children. It’s not that we didn’t want kids – just never had any. Because of all that…. my typical take on Mother’s Day has been, “Please…. can we just get this OVER with. STOP already with the reminders of what I no longer have and what I’ll never be!!!”. But this year is different. I am actually looking forward to Mother’s Day. Let me tell you why….
God has been talking to me a lot lately about value and purpose – through my small group at church, through friends, through life circumstances – lots of different ways. And the main theme of His Father’s #HeartTalk to me has been that I am loved, valued, and have purpose not because of what I’ve done or haven’t done, who I’ve birthed… or haven’t birthed. But I am loved, valued, and have purpose because I am the lovingly designed masterpiece of the greatest Artist/Creator of all time – well, of all eternity, actually. And He created me to have just the right and needed impact in my place and space in the world. And that place and space may not look like what I envisioned it to be in my younger days (a house full of kids and running a mission hospital in some far away land) – but I am truly where I am now “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
And, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the upcoming Sunday Worship Experience at my Amazing Church is based on that #BibleStory about #QueenEsther and themed #YouWereMadeForThis. So, if you’re in North Texas and have felt a little out of place and a lot out of sorts on Mother’s Day, please feel free to join me at Amazing Church. You’ll be in good company and no matter who you are and where you are on this life’s journey – YOU will be celebrated. Yes, Mom’s will be celebrated and babies will be dedicated but the celebration reaches much further than that. It will be a celebration of each of a #GoodGoodFather’s lovingly designed and #WellPurposed children.
So, this year, my level of dread around Mother’s Day has greatly diminished. I am looking forward to celebrating with my friends who have their Moms and their #PreciousChildren at their sides. But I am also looking forward to #CelebratingMe #JustAsIAm and the fact that I’m #SoVeryLoved by The Great I AM.
So….. Happy Mother’s Day to ALL!
Prayer for Lives of Simple Surrender
“How can I stand up before GOD and show proper respect to the high God? Should I bring an armload of offerings topped off with yearling calves? Would GOD be impressed with thousands of rams, with buckets and barrels of olive oil? Would he be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child, my precious baby, to cancel my sin? But He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what GOD is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.” –Micah 6:6-8, The Bible (The Message paraphrase)
An #Instaprayer on this National Day of Prayer
Today is recognized as the National Day of Prayer in the United States. So… in events and gatherings across the nation the words of the beautiful Bible verse, 2 Chronicles 7:14, will be recited and prayed.
However, I can’t help but wonder…. in the midst of our me-focused culture do we even have a clue of what it means to “humble ourselves” in true worship and prayer to our God? Or, are we so stained by our self-focused society, advertising, and entertainment that when we say we worship God we are really only worshipping a reflection of ourselves we have created in our minds? Could what Michael Card wrote in the early 1990’s still be true today?: “We’ve made You in our image so our faith’s idolatry.” (From Know You in The Now).
The words written so long ago in 2nd Chronicles are beautiful words…. But my prayer is that they will be REAL words today: in me, in you, in US! Please, Jesus…..
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” -2 Chronicles 7:14
“Love Through Me” (Today’s #Instaprayer)
Today’s #Instaprayer was written in another century but is still so beautiful and relevant today because Amy Carmichael not only penned these words…. she lived them. She served as a missionary to India for 55 years with no furlough back to her home in Ireland. In 1901 she established Dohnavur Fellowship, a mission and orphanage still operating today. She lived, served selflessly, and died among people very different than her who she loved much. I’ve been fascinated by her from the time I was told her missionary stories in #SundaySchool and I think we could all do well by praying and living her words and asking God to #LoveThroughMe.
. . . . . . .
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV
My #Instaprayer Project…. Join me??
Today I started posting on Instagram a short prayer to go along with the Scripture focus on my heart for the day. Feel free to join me in applying God’s Word and praying it back to our Good, Good Father. Here’s today’s post:
Today’s #instaprayer is inspired by James 2:1-4. “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”
Ragamuffin Oasis: Finding Our Places to Just Be 