I Am Not Like You

For the umpteenth time in my life, I couldn’t help but think the thought. I’m not like you. As I finished up reading a delightfully, simple, and heart-warming little book called Orphaned Hearts by Shawna K. Williams, I felt happy, satisfied, and blessed – and, quite honestly, discouraged. Happy, satisfied, and blessed because I so enjoyed the lovely, light, and joyful read in this world filled with so much darkness. So then why discouraged? Because I made the mistake once again of comparing something about myself with somebody else – and found myself falling yet again so very far short.

See, you can’t write like that person. You’ll never succeed like him. Your work is nothing compared with that person’s. If only you could sound like that. Shouldn’t you be further along by now? You’ll never make it; don’t bother even starting. You can’t finish what you start, can you? Why don’t you just quit while you’re behind? You’re always behind everyone, aren’t you?

Ever heard all the voices? Better yet, ever not heard them? Discouragement comes in all sorts of ways, shapes, forms, and sizes, doesn’t it? And the author of discouragement, Satan himself, is creative, isn’t he? As thought I don’t know better. As if I haven’t learned by now to STOP LISTENING to him. But alas, I still do. Too often. He never announces his grand entrance, does he? What a fool I am to listen! Listening to his garbage is exactly how I found myself once again listening to the voice that reminded me I’M NOT LIKE YOU.

In the grand scheme of things, is that really such a bad thing? Of course not! Now I come to my senses. I come back to the Lord. I remember. God didn’t create me to look, and act, and feel, and think like you. He didn’t create me in your image. He created me in His. He didn’t create me so my life could look like your life. But isn’t that how we are raised? Aren’t we raised to believe we are supposed to look like everybody else? And so we are.

But I am not. I am not like you. I never will be. And, even though at times my flesh is tempted to “fit in” to the mold of the world, more often than not now I realize this. The truth. God’s Truth.

I am made in His image. So instead of wasting any more time thinking my life should look like yours, why not focus once again on conforming my life to Christ’s – the way God intended.

Love, Lara
aka Made in His Image

“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;…” Romans 8:29 NASB

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ” Genesis 1:26 NASB

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