A critical missing piece of my personal puzzle has been understanding and accepting without fear and uncertainty “who I am”. And not only “who I am” but am I being all that I have been created, called, and purposed to be?

The excessively outward living that we have always done in this nation—white-ward, heavenward, money-ward, status-ward, celebrity-ward, culture-ward—has become more and more amplified as we turn to television, music, and social media to tell us how and who to be. Is it no wonder that we find ourselves confused, lonely, fearful, and enraged, bent now on destroying our very selves as we takes out countless others with us along the downward spiral through drugs, alcohol, plastic surgery, and outright soul selling in the name of “living our best lives”?

If I could share a secret or two with you, it would be that your best life is found inside you and not “out there”, tapping into the purpose for which God particularly created you. Maybe it is to dance, or to sing; perhaps it can be found in baking or rocking babies to sleep. Whatever your gift, your heart’s desire should be to fully realize the person God knew before you were in your mother’s belly (Jeremiah). You have been fearfully and wonderfully made, for God’s good pleasure, chosen to do a specifically glorious thing that only you can do for those assigned to you. Rather than chase shadows that could never fill your hands, close your eyes and recall the vision that you had of yourself before the world told you that you could not be whom God purposed you to be.

Self determination declares that we speak those things that be not as though they were, co-creating with our Creator the life for which we were made first in our hearts, then with our words, and finally in the very work of our hands. Decide, as I have, to leave this world empty of everything that you came with. Leave it all on the table, satisfied that you did all and were all that you were created to do and to be every second of every day.