See What God Sees // Bigger Than Your Doubts預覽

Exquisite You (Incomparable)

It can be exhausting, can’t it, this preoccupation with comparison? When I see you doing that, I am close to you, did you know? But you don’t see me. I am close, but you can’t find me. My very breath your breath—and you forget what it is that you breathe.

Let me purify you. Let me remind you how you are complete, in me.

Eyes on me, son. Eyes on me, daughter. Eyes on me. When you breathe me in, when you choose to see me first, everything else looks different. There is no preoccupation with what you don’t have, with how you are less than, with how you need to be more of this or less of that.

What is it you think you lack? This is the question I ask you to wrestle with now. Think it through. Take a deep breath. Write this down.. “What is it that I believe I lack?” Yes, write down the question . . . And ask me. Ask me what it is you think you lack, and I will show you how what you lack is not lack. It is space. And, son . . . daughter, you want space where I can fill you. You want space where I can come in and be your strength, your inspiration and guide. You do not want to fill your heart with what I haven’t given you. That is nothing you will ever want. That is nothing you should ever have.

How I have made you is a creation who is complete. This creation has everything. There is not one thing you don’t have because you were meant to have it—a talent or a gift that I forgot to give you so you need to look for it—spending hours, weeks, years, a lifetime, looking this way and that, wondering how it is that you are lacking what you need to be beautiful, successful, peaceful, joy-filled, complete.

It is worth you are measuring when you compare yourself with another person. Here you are, trying to compare one work of art to another. How can this be? How can one work of beauty be like another? And what if two were exactly alike? I would be missing you. If you were like another work of art I have made, than my plan would not be complete. I would be looking for you, mourning the loss of the beloved I designed and adored from the beginning.

I look for you now, even now, when you abandon the treasure I have given you, the you I have crafted with my two hands, my imagination, my heart—given breath to so you have life and you can relate to and have life with me . . . With me.

You are created to become more of yourself, not more of another. So, ask me to protect your heart. Ask me to be near and remind you that you are perfectly made and perfectly loved. I adore your company. I adore you. You rise and you become more complete in your fullness. And then our conversation, our time together, is even richer. Oh, like you say . . I can’t wait.

Exercise:

We are experts at comparison. We compare our appearance, our jobs, our families, our relationships, our intelligence, our homes . . . Anything that can be measured we measure. And the things that can’t be measured? Well . . . we find a way to determine their worth too.

It is exhausting, this treadmill of comparing ourselves. We assume that we are not measuring up; we convince ourselves we are not satisfied. We focus our minds and hearts on the effort of trying to prove to others . . . and, especially, to ourselves . . . that we are valuable.

And then we forget how perfectly made we are.

We focus on ourselves, on what we believe we lack, and we take our eyes off of truth, off of God.

We forget we are made precisely how He designed. We forget the miracle of who and whose we are.

We forget that we do not make ourselves. We forget that already, amazingly . . . we are made.

So, take a deep breath . . .

Then ask the Holy Spirit the question, “What is it I believe I lack?”

In the quiet, wait on him to show you. Expect him to whisper truth to your heart. . . .

In those raw, vulnerable places, where you feel you are lacking, ask God to come in. Invite Jesus into each place . . .

Jesus, with you, I lack nothing . . . You are my everything. I give you my heart. Restore me, once more, in you. Amen.

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