BE YOU!

So my post is a week plus late. Talk about a crazy week: Flu attack, flu antibiotics with dramatic side effects, me in the studio trying to record a voice over while coughing and sneezing, my mobile phone crashed and then other important responsibilities plus destiny adventures overtook my blog writing time. But I’m sure you’re now up to speed on your reading.

I remember my first day in high school. I’d been warned beforehand of how people got bullied in high school, so I landed armed with fierceness that I was not going to let anyone push me around. At the same time I wanted to maintain a certain cool, so I’d be likeable. So my dad dropped me off, and left me in the hands of the deputy head teacher. The deputy head teacher then called out to one the form 2 students and asked her to help me carry my stuff to the dormitory. I expected that the first question she would ask me would be my name, but to my surprise she asked ‘where do you live?’ And this is the question I had to answer for a few days, followed by, which primary school I’d come from, and what my parents did for a living. I later gathered that the reason they were asking wasn’t out of a genuineness to know me better, but it was just so they could gauge me in terms of which clique I’d best fit in, as well as know how they were to relate with me. I’m not the only one who got asked such questions; it was sort of a tradition.

Well, I never got bullied, because I somehow made friends with the bullies, the school captains, the bookworms, as well as the swanky clique. Depending on the group I was hanging out with, I’d tweak my personality to fit in. I’d be rowdy with the bullies, well behaved with the captains, a total nerd with the bookworms and swish, with the swanky.

This went on to a point it became so much a part of me, I didn’t realize I was still doing it way after high school. I had lost myself trying to be other people, so that I could fit in with the clique I was currently hanging out with, and wasn’t even aware that I’d lost myself.

                    

God created us the same in that He made us all in His image and likeness. But He made us different in that, we all carry a different expression of Him. So we need to stop trying to fit into each others expressions of God, and stand out. The bible clearly tells us that we were all created to stand out in out uniqueness for the honor and glory of God. (Matthew 5:16)

Like I mentioned in previous blogs, in counseling psychology, it is mandatory for the students to have sessions with a therapist. It is during my sessions that I slowly began realizing that I was living an imaginary life when it came to relating with people. There was no me, there was only the person I assumed the other person wanted to relate with. It is there that I began a journey to self-discovery.

I have come to realize that I’m not the only one who has faced this need to fit in, heck the idea is sold to us every day in movies and series we watch, magazines we read, radio programs we listen to etc. 

We were created to relate with one another, but I don’t know where the cliques’ idea came from. Maybe it stemmed from people finding it easier relating with the people they shared geographical space, professional field, nationality/tribe or spiritual inclination with. But these things were not meant to divide us, if anything we are to find unity in our diverse uniqueness.

I am not saying it is bad to find it easier to relate with one group as opposed to another. I am saying that, in our relating, most of us have lost themselves in order to fit in, and as if that’s not enough, these cliques have an invisible barrier that can be felt, if you are ‘not one of them’. The cliques have also spread both within and without the body of Christ, which is really sad. Can’t we all learn to relate, removing the invisible clique border and realize that we are all children of the most high, fashioned from the very fabric of God? That we are all here for a common purpose-to transform earth into heaven, by ensuring God’s will is fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven?

The one thing I believe would play a big role in the removal of those cliques and their borders is, if each one of us knew who we are. I believe that the clique issue is really an identity issue. We try to fit in because we don’t really know who we are. If you really know who you are, then you will be just that, and you will not feel the need to fit into any clique, because you already know where and how you fit in God’s plan.

My self-discovery journey is still ongoing, as I discover new things about myself as God reveals them. Everyday there’s something to learn, and just when I think I’ve got it all figured out, He reveals something new. My point is, my eyes are focused on the person who created me for only He can show me my true identity and teach me how to live it out, without feeling the need to conform to some clique. If you’ve been trying to find your identity apart from God, then what you’re currently living is unreal, a lie pitched to you by the world or the devil.

 

 

You too can make such a decision to focus on God the author of your story. If we all know who we are, then we can embrace our unique expressions of God. And then in oneness, best play our God given roles here on earth.

… From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Ephesians 4:16 NKJV

So, stop trying to fit in, and find out who you are! Embrace your unique expression of God in you, and then allow Him to rightly position you in His will. Be authentically you!