I finished staffing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) about a month ago and after the trainees graduated I suddenly found myself quickly moving from doing a lot of stuff to doing very little. This was difficult for me because I like to be busy, as it makes me feel needed and effective. I discovered that I’d been believing some lies, that ‘what I do is who I am’ and ‘what I do makes me valuable and important’! It was only when I slowed down that I realised this. I was suddenly thinking, “Oh no! now what do I do? I need to be doing something or people will not want me around.”
It was in this struggle that God spoke to me and asked me a question; he asked me “Why are you doing what you do? Does being a DTS leader define who you are? Or are you defined by your character, who I made you and gifted you as?” Then God took me to a verse in the Gospel of Mark where He says to Jesus “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Even though I had read this verse a number of times before and had been told that God said this to Jesus prior to Him doing any ministry, I was greatly challenged because this thought went through my head ‘So God is pleased with me not because I do things, but simply because I am who I am.’ This was my revelation; I don’t need to do things to please God or to be accepted by Him, but he accepts me whether or not I do things. He accepts me for simply being me, just as I am.
As we spend time with God and discover more of who He is and who we are in Him, we will find our peace. It is not the things we do that define us, but who we are. Why should we strive to be recognised and accepted by the world, trying to show the people around us that we are good at this or needed in that, when we are already accepted and good at what God wants us to be? No one can be better than you at being you and the only way we find out about who we are is by spending time with God, in His word and seeing who He is.
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