Embracing who you are in Christ

While growing up have you ever doubted your effectiveness as a witness for Christ because your conversion story is not "spectacular"? Or have you felt insecure because it seems that God has gifted other people more than you? This is one of the concerns I addressed in one of my DGroups this week.


Jean Grey Complex

In one of the X-men movies, Jean Grey felt that she didn't much have to offer to the team because she considered telepathy and telekinesis as passive superpower compared to the superpowers of her teammates. This led to insecurity and depression, which ultimately led to her demise (She would become the bad Phoenix in the next sequel). I've felt the same way too growing up. I questioned God about my testimony and my gifts. It seems that other people's story of how they met God were more spectacular than my story. They would share, "I was a drug addict then ..." or "I went from one relationship to another ..." or "I killed someone ..." And the young me thought, "God, I wish my story was like that." I thought that if I started off as a bad person, far away from God, my conversion story could be more convincing, more vivid, and can be much appreciated by the hearer. Instead, I was just normal, a good and unassuming guy.



I would also feel insecure about other's abilities and talents. Growing up I was a very shy and timid person. I remember I would walk on crowded hallways facedown just because. I didn't initiate conversations. I'm not the life of the party. I'm just on the sideways, a wallflower, "the awkward one." And then I thought, "God, I wished I was like this person or that, so that I wouldn't be so shy, and I wouldn't be so weird."

If you are felt that way too, congratulations, because you are human. I thank God because through Him and His Word, and the people He placed in my life, God allowed me to appreciate who I am in Christ.


Embracing your identity

In order to fully appreciate, for example, a very complex machine, like a mobile phone, you need to go to the manual to fully appreciate what it can do and how can it fully serve its purpose. Same is true with us. In order to fully understand who we are, not what we or other people think about us, we must turn to The Manual, God's Word, to know the One who made you, and to fully understand His purposes for your life.

King David wrote about God, "You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful ... (Ps 139:13-14)." I remember a friend of mine said, that when God made you, He took a piece of His heart and fashioned it to become you. That's how God sees you. God's sole motivation to create you is His Fatherly love. He created you in joy and He has great plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11). That plan included sending His only Son so that God can take you back in relationship with Him. And when Christ is in you, you become a new creation (1 Co 5:17).

But some us try to find our identity in the wrong places and the wrong people and the wrong relationships. We end up believing lies and incomplete truths about ourselves and about how people are treating us. But when you start giving yourself to God, committing to discover who He is and why He is so passionately pursuing you, it will start transforming how you see yourself. You are not looking through the lens of your past, or the destructive words of the people around you, but you are now looking at yourself through the lens of your Maker.


Embracing your story

Growing up, I was just an average guy. I was a pretty good person, I thought. I wasn't too disobedient to parents. I wasn't a rowdy student. I had manners. I was polite. My parents are hardworking. I'm just okay ... unlike other people who didn't have everything all together. Then I read a version of me in the Bible who once encountered Jesus ...

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:17-22)

"All these I have kept since I was a boy." That was the story of my past. I wasn't bad, in fact, I was good. I was too good to see myself in need of Christ. The young man, he thought he'd done everything. But Jesus knew that inside he was still a sinner. Unwilling to give up the things that captured his heart, the young man walked away, ultimately choosing the idol in his heart instead of Christ.

The more I encounter Christ and His Word, the more I am confronted by my imperfections, my weaknesses, and my sin. And just like anybody else, I am as bad a sinner as the person next to me. Without Christ, I'm destined for hell, separated from God. I saw myself at the bottom, equally flawed like those people who I thought really messed it up. And that's when the beauty of grace shines through. That's when the Savior became my Savior. Our story of salvation is in itself the spectacular one. I may not have a conversion story that can wow a crowd, but I have His story that changed history, God in love became man, to die in place of us, so that we can live in Him. His story is my story.


Embracing your gifts

God wired each of us differently, with a unique set of personality, talents and abilities. That's why it's always not good to compare yourself with others. One thing is for sure. You are God's masterpiece, created to do good works (Eph 2:10).

I'm so blessed that in my time of discovery God placed people in my life who helped me understand my personality. I discovered how psychologists studied these personalities and the blend of strengths and skills that go with them. For example, in the four temperaments theory, I learned that I am a dominant choleric person with melancholy as a secondary temperament. In the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I am an INTJ (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging), nicknamed, The Architect or The Mastermind. In the Strengths Finder Test, my top 5 strengths are maximizer, futuristic, strategy, belief, and deliberativeness. (I provided links to each theories and a link to an online survey to help you discover yours).

Learning about unique set of personality, talents and abilities helped me appreciate who I am, and diminish the time I spent envying other people's gifts. It encouraged me to develop the gifts I knew were there, and give me sort of a "cheat sheet" of other gifts I may have but have not yet developed. When you find yourself operating in your natural gifts and abilities, as someone said, "you'll never work another day."

There were more than one instances when I unassumingly tell my "average" story that after I tell them individuals would approach me and tell me how they were able to relate with my experience because they went through the same ordeal or they are currently going through it that moment. Doesn't matter if people tell me or not, I know when I submit myself to God's plan, He will use my life to touch others. The only thing that matters is that with what God has given me, I will use it for His glory, faithfully obeying that task God has picked for me to do.

So go and discover God's plan for your life. And when you find it, faithfully walk in it and obey Him. It'll be your best journey yet.

“I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.”

Mother Theresa

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Discover your unique personality:

Four temperaments - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_temperaments
Online test - http://personality-testing.info/tests/4T.php

Myers-Briggs type indicator - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator
Online test - http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

Strength Finder - http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/about-strengthsfinder-20.aspx
Online test - http://www.freestrengthsfinder.com/1-free-strengthsfinder-test.html