How are you defined?

Take a minute and think about yourself. How would you define “you”? How would you describe who you really are? I think most of us would have a hard time listing off very many positive things about ourselves … we’ve been raised with the idea that this would be bragging. So instead, we’ve developed the opposite habit. We keep a record of our wrongs … always adding to the list … defining ourselves in a negative light. We never allow ourselves a break.

If this doesn’t sound like you … congratulations … I want to know your secret. Actually, I think I know the secret … I just have a hard time putting that knowledge into action.

One moment does not define us. I will even go as far as to say an accumulation of moments do not define us. God defines us. He made us … He gets to apply the description. He bought us … He gets to write the ad.

God proves this idea to me throughout the Bible. I’ve seen it most in the life of David. The more I study about him the more I see just how much he messed up. And yet, I never hear God tell His people, “Do not be like David who murdered a man.” or “Do not follow David’s example of adultery.” Quite the opposite, over and over throughout the Old Testament God tells the people to remember David, to be like David. Just looking in 1 Kings we see a brief description of David through God’s eyes …

1 Kings 3:14 - … walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life. 1 Kings 9:4 - … walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, 1 Kings 11:4 – … his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 1 Kings 11:6 – … he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. 1 Kings 14:8 – … but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.

When I look at David’s life and his actions I don’t always see a man that followed the Lord completely, or that only did what was right in God’s eyes. But this is how God describes Him … this is how God saw Him. So wouldn’t it reason that God sees me the same way?

I was knit together in my mother’s womb, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I am wonderful. I was created good and I am the apple of His eye.

This is just the beginning … His thoughts about us are too numerous to name, but I want you to try. Tell me some things that God has said about you … how does He define you?



- Paige Foreman