I’d apologize for my absence of late, but that gets old
after a while—lol. No, there are several reasons why I haven’t made any posts
in a while. The challenge of finding the time to write anything of my own
remains right up there near the top. But, I’ve been thinking about making a major
change with my blog, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like it’s
the right direction to take. This is going to be one of those epically long
posts, just so you know in advance.
When I started My Coke Addiction, there were several
influencing factors. I’d been wanting to start my own blog for a while…just a
place where I could write for me with little other purpose than sharing my
thoughts, ideas, and opinions—whether they were ever read by anyone else or not.
When I realized the great play on words about my unnatural dependence on soft
drinks, I was so giddy that I just about couldn’t stand it. How perfect! Better
snap that up before someone else does!
Today, I feel like the name of my blog is so far from me
that I’m no longer inspired to write for it. I tried revamping the look and
feel, and that helped a little while, but still wasn’t satisfying. It simply
doesn’t fit me anymore.
I have tons and tons of ideas for posts, but none of which I
feel would make much sense in the original scope of this site. No, I haven’t
overcome my consumption of soft drinks. No, I haven’t claimed that healthy
lifestyle that I’d like to have. In fact, I’ve achieved very little toward much
of anything in terms of long-term lifestyle goals during that time.
Realizing My Identity
Most of my goals remain, at least on some level, but my life
view has changed quite dramatically. See, I’ve been a Child of the King for many,
many years now, but only in the last few months have I really begun to grasp
the reality of what that means. An eternity in the presence of my Lord, yes…no
brainer there. But what it means for me while I’m still here on this earth…how
that has managed to elude me all these years is a mystery to me, but a concept
that I am coming to understand—at least as much as my finite mind is capable of
understanding.
As believers, there are a lot of things we know to be true
in our head, but struggle when it comes to getting it down into our heart. What
I have realized is that I had no trouble trusting God on things that I could
not possibly control anyway—you know, things like my eternal fate. But when it
came to things that I thought I could
control…. “No, Lord—I got this one. I’ll handle it. Don’t need Your input here.”
Or maybe I’d ask for help, but it was for help doing it my way, not a request
for divine guidance or a submission to His will.
Now this grand revelation—it’s so simple that I struggle
with the idea of calling it a revelation in the first place—it’s so simple and
yet so powerful. This is something I’ve known
all my life. It’s something I’ve believed
all my life. So the idea itself was not the revelation….the revelation was
coming to terms with how little faith
I’ve had in what I knew and believed. And that was this: God is all powerful,
bigger than anything we can attempt to conceive of, full of grace, mercy, love,
and justice, and HE LOVES AND CARES FOR ME!
Why would I trust
the Creator of everything to save my
eternal soul and then not trust Him
with the details and struggles of my life? Why would I think that He wouldn’t care
about my daily decisions and challenges? Why would I not seek His wisdom and guidance in every area of my life? I think there are several answers here, but
the one that sticks out the most is that I was failing to truly understand my
identity in Him.
Owning My Identity
I think that far too often, our inability to fully grasp the
majesty of God leads us to try to put Him in a box. Granted, it’s a big box,
but it’s still a box. We try to understand His grace and power in relative
terms of what we can see and imagine. We cannot wrap our heads around the
ultimate meaning of “limitless” or “infinite” and so we just imagine the
biggest thing we can and then say God’s just a little bit bigger. When we begin
to realize our misguided way of thinking about God, however, it’s incredibly
humbling. He’s so amazing that we can’t even conceive of it, much less
understand it!
Then come the questions of broken humility. Why would the Maker
of heaven and earth be concerned about how many hours I put in at work or what’s
in my bank account? Why would He care one iota about the extra 50 pounds I’m
carrying around and how they got there? What possible interest would the
Supreme Ruler of all time and space
have in something as small and insignificant as my life, how tired I am, and
the state of my heart? He’s got bigger, more important things to deal with than
little old me.
When you put the first together with the second and realize
that this awesome Creator cares because He
loves you, it’s life changing. Of all the things in the universe, both
discovered and undiscovered, as complex and beautiful as they are, He still
concerns Himself with me. My soul and my heart, and those of yours, are still
more important to Him than the all the galaxies of the entire universe. They
are more beautiful to Him than the most breathtaking landscape or most
intricate flower. They are more valuable to Him than anything else in all His creation!
Wow, right? Just…wow! And to think that all these years I’ve
known this, and even experienced it in very real and personal ways, and it
still somehow failed to really sink into the depths of my heart. Scratch that….the
depths of my very existence. My identity is not in my successes, my failures,
my struggles, or my various roles as wife, mother, daughter, friend, or writer.
My identity is 100 percent in my value as a child of God. It
is in being His creation. It is in being loved and cherished by someone who had
absolutely no obligation of loving or cherishing me, but did so anyway and made
an unbreakable, holy promise that He always would. Whatever I accomplish or don’t
accomplish does not make me any more or less valuable to the One who loves me.
When you really begin to understand that, you fall in love
with God in a way that is indescribable. You understand who you are and what
you were made for. I was made for eternity. Anything that I might do in this life—anything
I might experience—it’s all just icing on the cake. Even the hardships and
heartbreaks.
It’s all part of His perfect plan to effect His will and
purpose for my life here as one minuscule part of His greater purpose for
eternity. I am His beloved whether I become an award-winning writer or I continue
to struggle just to pay the bills.
My circumstances do not change my identity in Christ. The
various roles I play do not change my identity in Christ. My life, on its own, apart
from God, is meaningless and insignificant outside of my own little family and
circle, and will have no impact on world history. My life in Him, however, is
valuable and purposeful and eternal. I only need understand that, own it, and
live it. I don’t need to do anything to
be valuable because He’s already done it all—I trust and obey and love the One
who first loved me, and I commit myself to Him because of that love and the sacrifice
of His Son.
Living My Identity
Now to come around to the point. I’ll admit that most of
this post reads as very “me-centered.” “I” came to realize, He loves “me,” “I”
am valuable to Him. It reads this way because this is an extremely personal
post about realizing my own identity—a testimony, if you will. However, the
greater message to take away is that it’s all about Him. Everything is about Him.
And so, because of that, it is difficult for me to continue
a project that puts focus on something.
“My Coke Addiction”….how much more self-centered could I get? And about
something so trivial and stupid to boot! If I am going to blog about my life,
then it should be focused on God’s lordship of it and the ways He gives me the privilege
of serving and experiencing Him.
“My Coke Addiction” gives the impression that a cola and how
much of it I consume, of all ridiculous things, is lord of my life…that it
somehow dictates my identity and life purpose. What I once found clever I now
find distasteful at best. Even if I change the topic of discussion, and I have
done so, there’s still that horrible name defining the tone and purpose of what’s
written within.
So yes, I still enjoy my soft drinks, but no, it is not the
focus of my life. And if it’s not the focus on my life, then why would I allow
that idea to perpetuate by continuing in a false identity in the form of a
domain name? God will decide what becomes of that aspect of my life, and every
other aspect, and in His good time and in accordance to His purpose for me. It
does not define me. It’s not even important…because it’s not about me in the
first place!
Where to Go from Here
I suppose what I’m getting at is that this might be the last
post I make here. I’m still thinking about where to go from here, but I won’t
make the same mistake of jumping on an idea without prayerful consideration
again. If I do start another blog, I may bring over some of my posts to live
there instead…and then again, I may not.
I really don’t know yet. But if I don’t come back here, or
one day you happen to notice that this blog no longer exists, that’s why. Nothing
is about me or the things of this world. It’s about His glory and majesty.
Nothing more, nothing less. My biggest fear at this point is being a poor
representation of Him—failing in one or more areas and having that somehow
distorted to be a reflection of God.
But even that I will trust to Him. Because Christ does not
fail. I fail when I forget to keep my focus on Him. And I will fail many, many
more times before I die. Because I’m imperfect. Because I’m human. Because my
flesh will still convince me that I can do certain things on my own from time
to time. But praise God, He loves me through my periods of self-focus and
brings me back to Him again. Even my failures He works together to bring
greater glory to Him.
I am both humbled and blessed to serve Him in any purpose
for which He calls—because He doesn’t need
me to accomplish His purpose, yet He still allows
me to be a part of His plan. He allows us the great privilege of manifesting His
glory and majesty through our lives, and those are the things I want to share
with the world. The name I use to do that should be a reflection of Him and His
glory, not a worldly play on words.
