The God Of All Comfort

Do you feel like you measure up to other Christians?

A testimony I like to share is about when I became a new believer in Jesus.  I found myself watching mature women at our church to see how I should be acting.  The problem was, I didn’t even come close – I was failing miserably!

My friend and I used to take long power walks.  While we walked, we often talked about maturity in Jesus, and just what that was supposed to look like.  She also felt her words and actions typically failed to demonstrate how Jesus would want her to live.

Because of this huge insecurity in my life, I often would put on my “mature godly Christian woman mask” when I was at church events.  I tried to mimic the words spoken by the women I admired, and used phrases such as “God bless you” often.

But more often than not it was a façade.

Since my friend struggled as I did, we would try and keep each other accountable, boosting each other up about how God really did love us, just as we are.  We would laugh at some of the dumb stuff we’d do, and then wonder if God were laughing along with us – or if we were, in fact, just being bad.

It took many, many years until I really started to feel confident in who I was – God created me just the way He wanted to!  He didn’t design me to be just like the beautiful elder’s wife that sat demurely beside her husband each week in church, always dressed perfectly.

Phew – what freedom!

Psalm 139 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible.  It just seeps straight down to my soul.  And I have to say, verses 13-16 of that Psalm have probably spoken to me more than any other passage as I’ve struggled with my “uniqueness.”

Here’s how it reads in the NLT:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Are you really seeing what this says?  It’s saying that God made us all – unique!  He didn’t design us to be little robot-Christians.  How on earth could we reach all the different types of people out there if we all were identical in looks, personalities and characteristics?

Think of what the poorest-of-the-poor would think if we embarked on a mission trip to a their nation that had just been hit by a devastating hurricane, and we show up in a dress and high heels wanting to help them.  How on earth could they relate to us?

I know I couldn’t!  I’d probably be thinking something like get this highfalutin chick out of here!

OK, I’m getting a little carried away, but I hope you can see my point.  We have all been put together just as God wanted us to be put together.

We may have different personalities – but we have the same God.

We may have different skin color – but we have the same God.

We may have different styles of dress – but we have the same God.

For those of you out there who struggle with feeling “just not good enough” compared to other Christians around you, please remember that God made you so very, very special – He doesn’t make any junk!

So it’s OK – leave your mask at home.  Let the inner beauty that God has specially instilled in you shine!  People need to see the real you – the unique special treasure that God has made you to be.