While I was preparing my message for Sunday this last week, I really had a chance to take a deep look inside myself. It isn’t always easy to do this. I’m never quite sure what I’ll find. But this time, God helped me to see some things in a new way.
I have been going on a journey of change as I make sense of my ADHD and what needs to be done to treat it. I have started seeing things in a new light. A lot of things that didn’t make sense for years are starting to come together.
I was reading through Psalm 139, a Psalm I have read hundreds of times. I know it practically by heart. I love what it has to say, and it never gets old. But this time, something hit me deep and hit me hard. I found myself with tears in my eyes while I was writing.
I was reading through the text and looking back through my own life. It jumped out and said: “THATS YOU!”
For years, I ran away from God. I thought I could put distance between us. I thought I could make my life so dark and despicable that He wouldn’t come near it. None of it worked. Wherever I ran, no matter how dark I could make it, He was there, waiting for me.
I also spent a lot of my life not thinking very well of myself. A lot contributed to this. I was told a lot as a kid how I could do so much better.
I had so much potential…
I could do so much better if I applied myself…
I felt after enough time that I wasn’t “good enough”.
When it came to any kind of reflection, I would default to the negative,
the weakness
the “not enough.”
Maybe we should be looking in another direction.
We have learned as Christians to think of ourselves as “nothing without Jesus.”
Well, there is something to that. Jesus completes me. He reunited me with my heavenly Father to enjoy the fellowship – the relationship – I was created for. I have a life in this relationship with God I could never have outside of it.
So Jesus makes me whole, but what about the idea I am nothing without Him?
This kind of language reduces me, you, or anybody – a person created by God – to nothing until we follow Jesus.
Are we less without Jesus than what we are created to be?
Yes.
Should we ever consider ourselves or anyone else as nothing?
Is that really what God thinks?
Verse 14 of Psalm 139 puts it in perspective:
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.”
God, you made me, and you make good stuff!
That is what it is. God made me in His image!
But I don’t want to make this post about me. At the same time God was speaking to me through this text about my situation, He was speaking to me about something else, too.
If I can’t live and accept myself where I am, how can I ever hope to meet others where they are?
I can’t.
So this verse is for me, but if this verse goes for me, it goes for everyone!
Im not just writing a “don’t worry, be happy” thing here. That’s superficial.
It’s cheap.
It doesn’t reach below the surface where we exist with all the weird stuff that’s in our heads and hearts.
No, this is saying something more substantial:
YOU MATTER
When God spoke to me through this text, He wasn’t just giving me a warm, fuzzy feeling to make my day. No, there was more to what He was doing.
God was showing me this message to take and pass on.
We all spend so much of our lives almost obsessed with our weaknesses.
When we are always reminded of what is “not quite as good,” we get down on ourselves.
When we find out we have something that makes us different, we want to keep it secret. We hide who we are, because we think “that’s not good enough”
But, I want to tell you this: YOU MATTER.
God smiled the day he made you. He was happy. He said: “this is good!”
You know what? He doesn’t love you any less today, regardless of what you have done.
YOU MATTER.
When I was reading this Psalm this past week, I came out wanting to spread this around, because it sounds pretty important for everyone to hear.
YOU MATTER. You are important. You are loved.
I am praying this will open up a lot of doors for me.
I don’t know how it wouldn’t.
The thing about having your eyes opened by the Lord is, once they’re opened, they don’t close back up that easily.
YOU MATTER.
You matter to God.
You matter to me.
I don’t care if you live next door or halfway around the world. I don’t care if you look like I do. I don’t care if you think, or believe, or talk, or vote, like I do.
I don’t want to keep my distance any more.
I want to get to know you.
I want you to know me.
The real me.
The one I would have tried to keep in the back room not too many years ago.
I am learning some new things about myself anyway with ADHD. It’s not a bed of roses, but it sure is something different!
I’d like to be around when you decide to let me meet that person you keep in the back room.
Because that is what I am called to do.
I want that.
I want to know you.
Really, no strings attached. I just want to know you.
I promise I won’t try to drag you into a church and up to an altar.
But I also promise I’ll pray for you until I run out of breath.
Because YOU MATTER.
You matter to God.
You matter to me.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and God makes good stuff!
Now, you may be asking: “What is this guy on, anyway? And can I have some?!”
You may be thinking: “This is weird. People don’t just say ‘I love you’ to people in a blog!”
Well, here I am. Weird and wonderful, the way God made me.
And I’m waiting to get to know weird and wonderful you.
Because YOU MATTER.
God loves you. I love you. There’s nothing you can do about it!
The Road Less Traveled 