So, what’s your story about His glory?
You gotta find your place in the history of grace …
NEXT THING YOU KNOW lyrics by Matthew West and Cindy Mizelle
Your authentic self is more significant than you know. Take a look around you: nearby and far. Everything and everyone is in desperate need of authenticity. And the real you is part of the solution.
Why can it seem so challenging to discover our authentic self? How could our lives change if we were conscious of the force of story, our personal narrative?
Connecting With Your Authentic Self
It is easy to connect with our authentic self when we approach it in a straightforward and common sense way. We can make it more difficult than it has to be. Here are a few thoughts … by no means a complete set of ideas … but something to get us leaning in a hope-filled direction.
- What were you thinking about in your childhood? Leonard Sweet wrote in Soul Salsa, “Do you see in your childhood remnants any foretastes of who you are or faint rumblings of who you might yet become?” Think back. What were you imagining? What were you dreaming about? Reflect on your childhood as a dreamlike state from which you are called to truly awaken in adulthood – living out those thoughtseeds, imaginationseeds and dreamseeds …
- Please don’t discount impressions, divine suggestions and intuitive thoughts. Especially as we grow in the mind of Christ, I believe He begins to lead us more and more in these ways. The temptation is to feel like, “Well, that’s just me thinking or dreaming that.” Be careful. Often His Spirit is moving in ways that can feel like it’s us.
- As you quest to more clearly discover your story – your “place in the history of grace” – what creates resonance within you? In physics, resonance is a state in which there is significant vibration in response to a stimulus. When does the music play for you? I can’t say what your story is … that’s primarily between you and God. But there is a life-resonance designed into your authentic self. There will not be silence, or even worse, dissonance – a discordant, inharmonious lifesound.
- What do people see in you? I’m talking now about those who love you and authentically have your best interests at heart, not their own agenda. They desire to see you released into your full story. You will be primarily led from within – at its foundation, this is an issue between you and the Creator. After all, you were thought about in a big way before the foundation of the world. Yet He will use significant relationships in your life to confirm and even prompt you in the way that is right for you.
Certainly more could be said and discussed around this theme. But this is something to get us reflecting about living from the place of our authentic self.
What is your perspective? I’d be interested to read your thoughts in the comment section. Other readers will benefit too.
Q4U: Do you feel like you’re questing for your authentic self?
photo credit: jesse.millan (Creative Commons)
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Excellent! I am still questing….