Brennan Manning says, âBe who you is cause if you ainât who you is, you is who you ainât. That power packed sentence is what I call my homework for life. We are all born with a unique personality and different gifts. Most importantly, we are blessed with the possibility of claiming our true identity based on Godâs image of us. It has taken me 40 years of being a Christ follower to accept and rest in my true self. I found that without seeing myself through the truth and grace of God, I am constantly striving to become what my ego is telling everyone else I am. When that image takes a deadly fall, I am left to look up from the ground and offer God a needy little girl (well, perhaps I should say, âold woman.)â It is at that very moment that I begin to see my true self and find peace in who I am and who I am not. I find that I am regularly tempted to prop myself back up based on images built through my own ego or otherâs perception of what they want me to be. So today I have a choice to listen to my ego, driven by fear or to listen to the truth in my heart, which is rooted in Godâs love.
To continue our inspiration from Parker Palmer, he says it this wayâ¦
Today I understand vocation (life) quite differently â not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Vocation (life) does not come from a voice âout thereâ calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice âin hereâ calling me to the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God
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