"YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE!"
I can’t tell you how many times I heard this last week in the day-long retreat I was speaking at. And it drove me nuts!
That might sound funny coming from someone who literally helps people figure out who they are - it’s an early step I guide them through (Holy Spirit helping) in understanding what God put them here for - but I was ready to fight.
The fact of the matter is that all these references were surface. I might as well have been hearing “You have to pick a favorite kind of ice cream for the week.”
We’re surrounded by euphemisms and anecdotes and metaphors that are so overused and underthought that they mean nothing. They leave us shrugging off what actually matters, chasing where our feelings point us instead of where our faith does. We end up assigning less meaning to major issues than they deserve.
And as I sat there listening, attempting to stay in my chair, I wondered how many women in this place had really heard what I’d opened the day with - what identity actually is and how it creates the foundation to discover God’s purpose for our life.
I wondered how many had actually taken in the truth that there is deep discovery work to do so that they can move from where they are into what they’re called to.
I wondered how many had been caught up in the moment and the emotion and my passion for their potential, only to drift immediately back into striving for what will never fulfill them.
It’s easy to avoid the call to rise.
It’s easy to stay in comfort.
It’s easy to keep doing things the way that you’ve already been doing them.
It’s easy to default to the way that others seem to be doing things around you.
It’s easy to live a status quo life.
But you’ll never be content in avoidance. You’ll never be content hiding in the comfort of surface talk or surface work.
KNOWING WHO YOU ARE IS NOT "SURFACE."
It’s not about which self-care routines or client attraction and marketing activities you like the most. It’s not about what is the most comfortable or easy for you. It’s not even about what you’re good at or what you suck at.
This is a battleground, and there is way more on the line than you may realize.
The Kingdom impact you’re here to be a conduit for is on the line.
The people you’re here to love and lead from a place of overflow are on the line.
Your sense of fulfillment and the freedom that comes from a posture of surrender and trust is on the line.
The stakes are high. And not enough of us are battle ready. Not enough of us are rooted and immovable when it comes to knowing who and Whose we are.
Too many of us doubt because we don’t understand the power and authority that we have access to. We don’t understand that we have a position in the kingdom. We don’t understand that we are heirs. We decide that we will settle for saying, "I don't know who I am."
We doubt, and we are like “a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” James 1:6 NIV
Look, I say this all the time and it bears repeating:
YOU ARE CUSTOM-CREATED FOR A PURPOSE BY YOUR GOD WHO LOVES YOU FIERCELY.
You are His beloved.
You are His chosen.
You reflect something of His character and personality - the world needs that through you and God wants to use it.
God has a plan for you.
Within that frame, we can begin to understand how we are each uniquely created - special snowflakes - and what that means for how we live and what we choose to do.
When we stay surface, we miss God.
When we stay surface, we miss the opportunity to find ourselves.
When we stay surface, we build off-ramps that take us off the road that we were meant to travel.
And let me tell you, sustainable fulfillment and joy do not live on the sideroads.
THIS IS ME CALLING YOU OUT.
Knowing who you are is the foundation of knowing what you’re here for.
Without it, you’ll drift and chase after what was never meant for you.
So yes. You have to know whose you are.
But actually know. Not anecdotally. Not superficially. Not within some box that someone else built. You’re paying for that box with your life and your joy.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
And this hasn't even brought into play the reality that distraction and avoidance, the surface-level approach to identity, and the way the world approaches who we are has a spiritual side. This is where the battle rages. Only, we are so stuck on the surface that we don’t even realize it.
Guess what happens when believers and Jesus-followers and Kingdom-builders really discover who they are IN JESUS?
We become dangerous. Not just a little dangerous either.
REALLY FREAKIN DANGEROUS TO THE DARKNESS.
We have power and authority by the Holy Spirit in us that the enemy does not want us to recognize. That’s why it’s so easy to stay surface - ease is curated to keep us on the sideroads.
Today, I’m calling you up - literally. We are going to take to on-ramp back UP onto the road that you are called to travel; the straight road that is God’s preferred path for your life.
It’s going to be bumpy.
You’re going to have to let go of the comfortable and the easy.
You’ll have to die to your pride and your plans.
And you’ll face resistance both of your own making and of the enemy’s.
But we do not travel alone. We travel with God. Emmanuel - God with us. (Joshua 1:9 NIV)
And we travel together - in community, unity, and grace.
We have a Kingdom to build. And it’s going to take ALL of us working together with our unique gifts and talents and personalities and callings.
With you,
Juli