More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Started reading
December 22, 2019
If the whispers of doubt that regularly rattle through my head are inner demons to be ignored—or warning bells to be heeded.
If I should shoulder my responsibilities with confidence in my calling—or panic and hide before I mess everything up.
the thought of putting yourself out there is petrifying.
what if your failures shipwreck others along the way?
you look at the great men and women of Scripture, you find one common denominator: they were all unqualified.
God has a habit of picking people who have been passed over.
we tend to qualify people based on character and competency.
You can pretend for only so long before the real you comes out.
God can’t bless who you pretend to be.
God knows everything about you—including the ugly parts, the broken parts, and the dysfunctional parts—yet he still believes in you. He still has a future and a hope for you.
We have an image in our heads of the perfect version of ourselves. And we dedicate a lot of time, effort, and desperate prayers to manifesting or manufacturing that image.
it is impossible to multiply what God didn’t give you to begin with.
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
stamp ourselves unqualified?
Who am I? Take a moment to think about that. You might even want to get out a piece of paper and brainstorm as many descriptors as you can think of.
the idea here isn’t to list the things you wish you were or even the things you have the potential to be. The idea is to describe accurately what you see when you see yourself right now.
Personality I am shy. I am loud. I am a people pleaser. I am driven… Character I am honest. I am lazy. I am mean. I am trustworthy. I am selfish… Conditions/Circumstances I am exhausted. I am healed. I am blessed. I am broke… Ability I am stupid. I am musical. I am athletic. I am weak… Emotions I am scared. I am conflicted. I am overwhelmed. I am hurting… Physical Traits I am slow. I am male. I am tall. I am out of shape… Education I am a dropout. I am a straight-A student. I am a college graduate… Family I am single. I am a parent. I am divorced. I am a widow… Ethnicity/Culture I am American.
...more
which comes first—the label or the lifestyle?
Doesn’t behavior follow being?
For better or for worse, your third words direct your existence. You have a great deal of control over them, but in order to control them, you must first recognize them.
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (verses 23–24) David asks God to know him, to test him, and to lead him.
How many of us live with buried talents and lost opportunities because we want so badly to be someone we are not that we never uncover who we are?
thing. We let fear force us into hiding who we are
we congratulate ourselves on being responsible, humble, and wise. But deep inside, it’s simply fear.
You can call it embarrassment, pride, dignity, or ego, but it’s never comfortable for our faults to be put on display.
an intolerance of your weaknesses will make it hard to be content with the real you.
The belief that God is more interested in our perfection than our relationship with him is the birthplace of insecurity.
God doesn’t merely tolerate us. He loves us, pursues us, and embraces us.
maybe if we can stop smoking, stop cussing, stop yelling at the kids, stop eating ice cream after 9:00 p.m., and actually make something of ourselves, God will be able to embrace us for who we are. He puts up with us for now. He’ll love us later.
And maybe when we reach our own goals—that ideal weight, that income level, that standard—we’ll be able to love ourselves too.
The Bible teaches the exact opposite. God loved us when we couldn’t have cared less about him. How much more certain is his love for us now that we actually want to know him and follow him?
If we’re perfectly accepted as we are, what is our motivation for change?
two big reasons we avoid being ourselves: fear of failure and plain old pride.
You don’t need to impress him to gain his favor.
You took Jesus’s name the day you became a Christian. It was, beyond a doubt, the greatest day of your life. It was the day you gave him all of you and received all of him in exchange. And it’s pretty obvious who got the better side of that deal.
“You’d better not embarrass me,” we might imagine God saying. “You’d better act like me and talk like me and represent me properly.”
Maybe you think or say, “I am…pathetic.” But God responds with You might feel that way, but you took my name. And I am…powerful. And if I am in you, you aren’t pathetic anymore. You have all the power that’s in my name.
A. W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
What we do always follows who we are—or who we think we are.
He wasn’t her prosecutor. He was her defense lawyer.
The Woman Caught in Adultery. And people will say, “Who? There’s no one here by that name. Oh wait…Do you mean the person named The Woman Who Wasn’t Judged for Her Adultery? The one who’s known around here as The Woman Jesus Forgave? The person we like to call The Woman Who Went and Sinned No More? She’s right over there. She goes by a different name now.”
“The Story of the Men Caught Throwing Stones.”
You thought you had failed, but I’m preparing you for your greatest success. You thought you were disqualified, but your calling is surer than ever.
some things need to be embraced. Accepted. Tolerated. They aren’t going away, so we might as well get used to the idea. We need to learn to compensate for them, we need to lean on others, and mostly we need to have a healthy dose of humility.
just as big a travesty as being a fear-bound recluse.
your failures are real, but they aren’t final.
Instead of trying to contradict your unworthiness, embrace it. But then replace it with God’s acceptance and approval.
