The Lord said, “Susan, there is a struggle, that struggle is unbelief.
There is a rest, that rest is the promised land. There is a promised
land, that promised land is you. You are the land that flows with milk
and honey.”
I labor to enter the rest that comes with being comfortable in my own
skin. I reach to accept and receive the me God created. All the anxiety
and unrest is a fight with the residue of who I perceived myself to be
apart from Christ. Now I contend for the faith to be who I really and
already am in Christ.
Recognizing my true self in Christ does
not happen “all at once.” I enter the ease of being me, and then I
leave the rest and labor to return to the awareness of my true self
once again. The struggle to “become” is a faith struggle. It is the
work required to believe that I already am who God said I am. I am not
becoming myself, I am becoming aware of myself. This is faith’s
struggle, unbelief is the resistance. Once I pass through the veil of
unbelief it is easy to be myself and to walk in a finished work.
The
distraction of outer works and the inner fear of letting go of the old
ideas I have about myself are the barriers I am breaking. Pressing
through and walking in the rest of being who I am is the same as
walking in grace. Life is never easier than when I am walking in the
freedom of being who I am in any given situation. Not to enter this
rest is to never be myself and to never be myself is to never really
live. The degree of my unrest, is the degree of my unawareness of who I
really am.
At times I feel empty. I don’t know who I am
without my old interpretations; but I need not fear the emptiness. I
will continue to make room to receive God’s Susan. The gift of my true
personhood in Christ is the greatest gift I have been given, and to
choose her is to choose in favor of God’s design.
I am learning
to see myself in the present moment as I practice taking that all
important pause between “stimuli and response.” I possess myself in
each moment rather than giving way to the reactions of an old, falsely
conditioned response.
Only when I am myself am I truly bread
for others. Waking up to the reality of who I am isn’t about being
good...it’s about being me. In communion with Him, I receive the faith
I need to be myself. I repent my way to who I really am. I turn from
the false to the real a million times a day if necessary. I am leaving
the wilderness of the false and fragile ego, and letting go of the
memory of old familiar identities.
There is a burning desire
within me. It is the desire to simply be myself; unencumbered by the
fear of man. In being who I am, every craving is satisfied. The
cravings are satisfied from within and have nothing to do with outer
conditions or relationships. When I walk in freedom, others around me
are freed. I take off false expectations and they are free to be
themselves.
I ache for my true self, for Christ to be who He
is in me. The labor (the inner work) is worth it, for I am inheriting
an authentic Susan, the God-breathed, unique, and critically necessary
expression of Christ that I am. Being who I am is all about Christ.
When I am “me” then He is glorified, lifted up, and able to draw all
men to Him. When I am myself, life is worth living….
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