I don’t know about you, but early on in life I learned I was not enough. I don’t know where it was or when it was, or if there was a conspiracy behind it. But I’ve found that I’m not the only one.
You know what I’m talking about. I’m not good enough, big enough, smart enough. I don’t have enough money. I was here too late, too early; should have been here yesterday. You know all the excuses. But here is what I have learned – when I say “learned” I mean I’m continuing to learn – and that is, the only thing I can be the absolute best at is being me. Yeah, me. The unique me that God created.
Think about it. Here is God who created the universe, the earth and everything in it. And He creates me. He made a decision to make me how tall I am, how natively intelligent I am, and a whole other list of things like the fact that I wear a size thirteen shoe. But those are not the things that make you and me truly unique. It’s our heart, our soul, our personhood, our humanity given to us by our God.
Here is what I’ve decided. I’m going to stop trying to be someone else. I know, at my age I should have learned this a long time ago. But I know I’m not the only one.
I remember an old song I heard years ago that said, “I am the one and only.” I didn’t like it at first until I listened to the lyrics. And it’s a plaintive cry to simply embrace fully who you are, because there is only one thing you could ever really be the absolute best at, better than anyone in the whole world. And that is being you; being fully you.
Everything that God created lies within you in your potential. But it’s your choice to embrace it, to reach it, to bring it out and to offer it up. There is a verse in the book of Romans that says that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice. What an odd thing to say. Sacrifice is die, right? But the kind of sacrifices we need in our world gone mad, are living sacrifices: men and women who fully embrace their gifts, their talents, and their passions in the name of God and in the name of good.