Find Yourself Before You're Found
Up front, I’d like to apologise to all my male readers for ‘shining on their shine’ as Sam would put it. I’m well aware that it’s men’s month and we love and appreciate you all for being our awesome dads, uncles, granddads, brothers, nephews, colleagues, boyfriends and husbands but this is yet another (lovely) post about women. (admit it, you guys have been in the spotlight for centuries, I’m sure you can give up two minutes of your time).
I’m still reading that book about the bad girls of the Bible and I’m loving how it’s making me go back and study Bible characters I thought I already knew a lot about. While reading about the nameless woman at the well in John 4 something tugged at my heart. Besides that this is the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and anyone, I was drawn towards the fact that this woman had had 5 failed marriages.
I wondered what that must have felt like. Whatever the reasons might have been, if she was anything like me, she must have felt like she was part of the problem. We’re talking marriages here, not just dates, five divorces not just break ups. It must have weighed heavy on her esteem...maybe that’s why she hadn’t gone down the isle with bf number six. That’s when this phrase came to my mind or heart or wherever it is God dropped it: “find yourself before you’re found.”
Found by what you ask? Marriage, motherhood, your dream job...whatever it is your heart fancies, it must find you after you have already found yourself because if not, you’ll let it define you. I wrote not too long ago about the downside of titles, that when we allow them to be all that we are, we loose the essence of who we really are. Same thing here. If I don’t find who Gugu is and what the purpose of her existence before Gugu gets found by some random guy who wants to make an honest woman out of her (I really don’t understand the logic behind this phrase) Gugu is in trouble because she will now define herself by what this guys chooses and wont object to anything because she doesn’t know better. If he says she’s beautiful and a great wife and mother then that’s what she’ll have to believe. The day he decides she’s a good-for-nothing woman who sits around all day being useless, that’s what she’ll have to believe.
But if she has found herself, regardless what others will define her as, regardless of what she has been through, she wont be moved.
And how does one find themselves? In God their Maker, in whose image and likeness theg were made. I like how the conversation between the woman at the well ends when Jesus openly proclaims that He’s the Messiah (something he rarely did, second to conversing with a woman). For me that said this was it for this woman, all she needed to hear. I need to find myself by coming into close relationship with my Maker who can inform me about His intentions for my existence. I heard another preacher say before Eve walked with Adam, she walked with God, before she encountered anyone and anyhing else, she encountered God.
It’s so important for us women to find ourselves, to walk with God, to get our identity and definition right before we encounter others. I’ll go from one relationship to another like the woman at the well if I allow myself to live lost...until I find myself I’ll always live a life less than the one I was called to live. So begin the journey to finding yourself today (because that’s what it is, a joirney.) Take God’s hand and walk with Him, you won’t regret it, it will make everything else worthwile.
I’m still reading that book about the bad girls of the Bible and I’m loving how it’s making me go back and study Bible characters I thought I already knew a lot about. While reading about the nameless woman at the well in John 4 something tugged at my heart. Besides that this is the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and anyone, I was drawn towards the fact that this woman had had 5 failed marriages.
I wondered what that must have felt like. Whatever the reasons might have been, if she was anything like me, she must have felt like she was part of the problem. We’re talking marriages here, not just dates, five divorces not just break ups. It must have weighed heavy on her esteem...maybe that’s why she hadn’t gone down the isle with bf number six. That’s when this phrase came to my mind or heart or wherever it is God dropped it: “find yourself before you’re found.”
Found by what you ask? Marriage, motherhood, your dream job...whatever it is your heart fancies, it must find you after you have already found yourself because if not, you’ll let it define you. I wrote not too long ago about the downside of titles, that when we allow them to be all that we are, we loose the essence of who we really are. Same thing here. If I don’t find who Gugu is and what the purpose of her existence before Gugu gets found by some random guy who wants to make an honest woman out of her (I really don’t understand the logic behind this phrase) Gugu is in trouble because she will now define herself by what this guys chooses and wont object to anything because she doesn’t know better. If he says she’s beautiful and a great wife and mother then that’s what she’ll have to believe. The day he decides she’s a good-for-nothing woman who sits around all day being useless, that’s what she’ll have to believe.
But if she has found herself, regardless what others will define her as, regardless of what she has been through, she wont be moved.
And how does one find themselves? In God their Maker, in whose image and likeness theg were made. I like how the conversation between the woman at the well ends when Jesus openly proclaims that He’s the Messiah (something he rarely did, second to conversing with a woman). For me that said this was it for this woman, all she needed to hear. I need to find myself by coming into close relationship with my Maker who can inform me about His intentions for my existence. I heard another preacher say before Eve walked with Adam, she walked with God, before she encountered anyone and anyhing else, she encountered God.
It’s so important for us women to find ourselves, to walk with God, to get our identity and definition right before we encounter others. I’ll go from one relationship to another like the woman at the well if I allow myself to live lost...until I find myself I’ll always live a life less than the one I was called to live. So begin the journey to finding yourself today (because that’s what it is, a joirney.) Take God’s hand and walk with Him, you won’t regret it, it will make everything else worthwile.
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