Who you are.

Sometimes
you don’t feel good enough,
you feel so unqualified,
you lack that confidence and
you’re biting your nails on the inside.

Well, here’s the deal (like my husband would say): whenever you start to feel timid, shy or afraid, or if the world ever tries to make you feel inadequate or not enough, you have to remember who You are in Jesus.  You just have to… and if you don’t know Him and what He says about you, you need to, because that’s where “who you really are” will be found and that’s where true confidence comes from.

Even before He created the earth and everything in it, God already knew you, He set you apart as his prized possession and He placed His stamp of approval on you.  It was His very hands that formed you, fashioned you and knitted every part of you together in your mother’s womb with such tenderness and care.  Even from the womb, He knew what your name would be.  You are His workmanship, a masterpiece, a work of art, and long ago He prepared special things for you… things intended just for you… but the catch is, you have to know it and believe it.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Ephesians 2:10

You are adequate and capable if not just for the mere fact that God created you and everything that He creates has value and purpose.  He was intentional about you and He distinctly planned out all of your days out even before time began.  He is so acquainted with every detail of your life and in fact, He knows everything you are going to say before you even say it.  That could be a scary thought, if it wasn’t Him we were dealing with, right?  But it is Him, and thankfully so because He’s probably one of the only ones that sees all and knows all (the good, the bad and the ugly), and yet is still wild over you.

So whenever you feel unsure of yourself, wishing you were a little less of this, or a little more of that, feeling inferior or intimidated by your surroundings, your circumstances or someone in your path, remember who you are.  You are loved beyond measure and the Father is well-pleased with you already.  There’s nothing you have to do to earn it and there’s not one thing you can do to change it.  Even if you goofed up, what difference would it make in the way He feels about you? He’s a good Father that picks us up when we fall and sets us back on our feet. The pressure is off because He sees you as who He created you to be well before you even measure up to it.  We weren’t designed to do things in our own strength anyway but rather fully relying on His.  Apart from Him we can do nothing.  

He’s done the work, His plans for you are good, He made you for a specific purpose and He has designed you with the potential to fulfill that purpose.  Your confidence has to come from the ultimate truth of knowing where you came from.  Even if you fail, the truth doesn’t.  He will work all things out for the good of those who love him and are called according to His purpose.

You are well-equipped for this life and anything you have to face.  Now, all you have to do is partner with Him and believe it. 

♥

 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether…. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. 
Psalm 139