Be Yourself…

It may surprise you to know this, but God wants you to be yourself. Religion, which will always be the polar opposite of true Christianity, demands that you conform yourself to established dogmas and creeds which serve more to take away life than to give it. Your likes and dislikes are yours alone and need not be modified to fit in with certain groups with their well defined practices. Obviously wrong will always be wrong and right will always be right, but your individuality will always benefit you the most. Trying to be someone else or make yourself into someone you are not is hypocrisy. It reduces your life experience to that of an actor on a stage playing for the approval of others. We all seek the approval of others but not to our own detriment; not to the compromise of our own selves. Being yourself frees you to live how you want to live life without always looking over your shoulder for the opinions of the naysayers. In this every individual has something to offer that only they can give. Denying yourself of this privilege admits to a fault in how the Creator made you to be and our Creator does not make mistakes. Living in perpetual unhappiness about how you look or the way you talk or what you find enjoyable and meaningful hurts only your own heart and greatly diminishes your progress on life. Who you are and what you have to offer the world proceeds from you and you alone. The spirit that God created for us meshes perfectly with who we already are. The spirit inside you doesn’t seek to take away who you are but rather seeks to make you the very best version of yourself. In this God needs for you to be unashamedly and unabashedly yourself. Be yourself.

The world around us preaches conformity. It is forever telling us what we need to do to fit in. As a society we are told to join the herd and not make waves. It decries individuality and nonconformity as something to be avoided at all costs. It reports that we are not free to make our own way, but rather should trek down well established paths that lead to monotony and boredom rather than freedom of expression and a fulfilling life. True freedom is found in the freedom to choose. You may be what you will to be. The work that you do joyfully will always be a part of who you are. How many of us submit ourselves to labor in fields we do not enjoy because of the promise of safety and security? Don’t we all admire the person that chooses for themselves the work they must do and is not the world better off because of it? “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson. You have an appeal to certain people. You will find an audience for the things you do best. You will discover the space you were meant to occupy. The only true barometer will be your own heart. When you are yourself you will not hide neither your likes nor your aversions. When you are yourself you can trust your own judgments and do not need a majority vote. You may not always be right and you may need to learn certain lessons, but there is infinitely more joy in that than being constantly told what to do. God wants you to be yourself because there is work that only you can accomplish and without that work the world will suffer. Despite the world’s measuring stick, the work that you must do may only be found within. When you finally break free from the chains of conformity and outside expectations, you have taken your rightful place. Be yourself.

There are times when something needs to be said or something needs to be done that you are best suited to say and do. Yet how many people do not say nor do because of the fear of not fitting in? How many words are not said because of the potential loss of approval? How much kindness and love is withheld because of circumstances and conditions or for fear of ridicule and being maligned? How many times have we known what to do yet doubted our own hearts and didn’t act? When we accomplish things we don’t accomplish for the accolades from others but rather for the satisfaction we feel in our own hearts.“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages…” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson. God does not work in groups, He works in individuals. There are things He will reveal to you and not to any other person. Yet, He will not have His work done by cowards. In order to be all that God called you to be, you must be yourself. You must exercise the demons of ‘group think’ and think for yourself. The spirt inside of you will lead you to the right conclusion. Be yourself and for goodness sakes don’t try to be anyone else.

Being yourself is truly a difficult lesson because it is the antithesis of the world. The world does not want you to act independently because it threatens the status quo. Yet in order to be yourself you must act independently. You must think, act and live as an individual. If your motive is love you will always make the right choice. This is not to say you should divorce yourself from other people, but rather live in harmony with others as your own unique self. Who are we to predict the impact we can have on others by simply being ourselves? Who is to say how many lives we might change simply from acting and saying from within rather than from without? Being alive on this earth you have a great opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. You have a mission that only you can fulfill. Be the man or woman God called you to be and be yourself. God would not have it any other way.

Just some good thoughts…