This video was recorded on Monday with Mukkove, a weekly feature in the Ready. Set. SOAR! Community on Facebook.
Edited transcript:
Do you see your identity as a mother of children whose work is never done or appreciated?
OR
Do you see yourself as a mother of world changers – the laundry, dishes, and every other hard or mundane thing of motherhood is a tool for their training?
Do you see yourself as a victim of your circumstances and your children even?
OR
Do you see yourself as an empowered woman with a very high calling?
There are so many things that shape who you truly are and how you see yourself- Your parents, events you experience, words that are spoken over you, circumstances that you’re in, your personality, your gifts, the huge variety of experiences you have, and most importantly your perspective of each of those things. Sometimes those things tell you the truth. Sometimes they accurately tell you who God made you to be and who you are. But sometimes they lie to you.
Your true identity comes from the Lord. Knowing who He is, knowing how He speaks to you, knowing His word is all key to your identity and how you see yourself.
You can choose to believe what God said as your identity rather than what experiences or emotions or circumstances are telling you. Identity and your purpose or are tied together.
Do you see you’re a piece in expanding God’s kingdom and partnering with Him? Are you just kind of biding your time hoping to make the best of it until it’s all over?
Circumstances, emotions, and the lies can be so loud that often it’s given more weight than of the still small voice of the Lord. He gives you your true identity and your true value. If you give enough weight to that still small voice it can drown out the noise that’s telling you-you’re not enough.
You also may not realize how much power you have over your own identity. You get to choose. There’s the noise of everything that’s happened to you and around you and what people are saying. And there’s the testimony of Holy Spirit, of who He made you to be. Listen to Him say, “This is what I made you for. This is how I see you. This is how I value you.” You get to choose which one to listen to and which one to empower, which one to act like.
It’s an awesome journey to learn to do that. To learn how to partner with what God says and who He says you are instead of just being a victim to everything that’s thrown at you. The things coming at us feel so real and seem so true, when in fact they might not be.
Learn to let emotions and circumstances inform you, but not let them define you.
So how, how does that play out in your unique identity? You can sort through and identify the things God wants you to keep and the things the enemy has distorted or stolen from you or lied to you about. Maybe the enemy has you thinking a good thing is bad or you don’t believe you have something that God is telling you that you have.
Who are you and why does it matter? And I think for me as a mom, it matters so much because I’ve got small people (who now there really aren’t small people anymore). They’re watching me and they’re seeing how I get my identity and how I make my choices and what I value. Sometimes don’t see how small things affect big things. Our children absorb their surroundings. I’m sure as a mom you have heard a child say something that made you first go “Where did you learn that!” and second realize, “Oh, that’s just like me.” That’s how it’s meant to happen. That makes it so important to live like we want them to live.
If I say the Lord gives me an encouraging word and says I’m a lighthouse, that I am strong, encouraging to people, and a safe place that they can come for direction – do I act like it?
How I treat the word of God and what He says about me matters, especially as my kids are watching.
I am growing to create a culture of taking God at His word and acting on it because that’s what I want my children to do. I want them to take His word and run with it. I want them to see themselves as He sees them and as He’s called them to be rather than what the world, or their circumstances, or their feelings tell them.
Life is hard and we have an enemy that is always trying to beat us up. And we need to have that foundation of knowing who God is.