A few years ago, there was a popular song that seemed to be absolutely everywhere. You know—the song they play in the grocery store, the department store, on commercials—you just couldn’t get away from it.
Because I’m a very artistically driven person—I’m very easily influenced by music. Very often God will use a song to absolutely slice my heart open so He can begin the healing process. Several years ago, the Holy Spirit did just that with a song that I was hearing everywhere. (Right up front let me say that I know nothing about the artist or any of her music and I’m not endorsing it at all. It was just one of those songs that was everywhere.)
Basically, the song was about a girl who’s boyfriend told her everything that was wrong with her. She was stupid, she was useless, she couldn’t do anything right. However, my antenna, always tuned into any form of music available plugged into this song and started thinking about my relationship with my Dad and all the labels he’d put on me over the years.
But then the song takes a turn, the drums bang and the electric guitar picked up and the singer belted out, “But according to him”….and then she listed all the ways that a different guy saw her and how knowing the other guy made her think that she was worth more than what she was settling for with her boyfriend.
In that moment, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, “According to your Dad you may be all of these bad things….but according to your Heavenly Father, all of those traits that your Dad sees as negative are positives. They are the things that make your Heavenly Father looks at you and beam with pride. They are the qualities He put into your personality when you were born because He had a plan and a purpose to use those characteristics exactly the way they are to make a difference in His kingdom. According to your Heavenly Father you are loved, adored, wanted, enjoyed, appreciated…it’s time to start seeing yourself According to Him.”
Now understand…I’m not having devotions while this is going on…I’m out of the house. The Holy Spirit’s doing this major work in my heart and I’m a mess. But those words changed my heart.
Even though I understood from all the years of counseling I’d gone through when I first came home from college that my issues came from my Dad’s problems, and they weren’t legitimate, and I needed to overcome, now I was finally realizing God sees me so much differently than I see myself.
He designed me with a purpose and a plan in mind. Sure, there were parts of me that needed to be refined for His purposes….but God’s goal was to do just that, take what He’d created and not destroy it, but make it better, stronger, more developed into the material that He could use to build His kingdom.
Now for the first time, I was free to not just abandon the old labels that I was carrying around, but actually replace them with new labels—healthy labels of the way that my Heavenly Father sees me. As I studied the Bible, particularly the life of Jesus, I saw that this is the hope that He spoke into the life of every person He came in contact with during His time here on earth.
One after another from the disciples, to Mary Magdalene, to lepers, foreigners, women, and children, when He came into people’s lives He saw past what everyone else saw and He spoke life, healing, freedom, purpose, redemption and significance. As we read through the Gospels we see that He took the most ordinary, insignificant, messed up people, the ones that the world have given up on and He invited them to find their plan, their place and their purpose inside of His kingdom. According to Him, they had value, they had a calling, and they had a significant role to play in His kingdom.
Today, the same thing is true for each one of us.
I don’t know what labels you are carrying. Yes, my negative labels came from my Dad, but that’s just my story. Your story could be very different. Still, somewhere along the way something or someone attached negative labels into your life. It could have been a woman that you admired, a boyfriend or husband, a teacher, or maybe you caused yourself to be labeled by making wrong choices and allowing sin to damage your spirit.
Whatever your story, I am here to tell you today that Jesus wants to completely remove the old labels that are damaging your heart and replace them with labels that are according to Him. He wants to heal you and change you, making you into the woman that He sees when He looks at you, the woman you were always created to be.
The truth is that when I trusted my relationship with God enough to start allowing Him to deal with the issues in my heart and mind that were stealing my significance, bring them to the surface, heal them, and teach me how to overcome them, that’s when I was finally able to conquer my own significance crisis and truly find my significance in Jesus.
This is my testimony. Today, I’m here to share with you that it can be your testimony, too.
Today can be the beginning of your own journey to finding your significance in Jesus Christ.
The first step on is choosing to have your own personal relationship with Jesus.
The next step is trusting that relationship enough to give God the freedom to deal with the pain in your soul and the issues in your heart and mind that are stealing your significance.
The final step is allowing God to see You as He sees You and understanding that to Him you are significant.
I’m not going to pretend that this is something that can magically happen in a moment. However, today, you can make a choice to start the journey toward finding your significance in Jesus. Today can be the first step on your journey to restoration.
Today is the day that you can start finding your significance in Jesus.
Let’s pray.
“Dear Heavenly Father, Once again I come to You, ready to make another choice. You know even better than I the things from my past that are keeping me in bondage, preventing me from reaching my full potential as Your daughter. You know that I’ve tried to find my identity in many different things…relationships, accomplishments, and the approval of other people. You also know the things in my past that have kept me from truly finding my identity in You.
But today, Lord, I want to make a different choice. Today, I am opening the door for you to begin searching through the archives of my past and do whatever is necessary to clean out anything that is damaging my soul or creating lies in my mind. I surrender my plans, my timetable, and my agenda to You—giving You the time necessary to take me through this process. I’m tired of my past controlling me and telling me who I am. I want to start the journey off healing and learning who YOU created me to be. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
