Inside Out: Living from Within
There is a stability that comes when you know who you are, your giftings, and you embrace boundaries.
Identity is critical to experiencing the quality of life and impacting the way God has destined you to. I believe it is where the root of our problems come from as a people. Individuals and Communities a like.
Communities without a sense of identity soon becomes a cess-pool of gossip, slander, and toxicity. There is no where to direct the energy gifted to them to impact.
Stagnant waters are usually the most contaminated.
An individual without a strong sense of identity is usually on the spectrum self-destruction. Whether they are in a community or a lone-wolf, the self-destruction will always manifest itself. Maybe through torn relationships, harmful behaviors, or simply destructive patterns of thinking.
If you don’t discover who you are then the world will give you an identity that you may to like.
When you know who you are or even just have a general idea then you can move on to giving what you have been gifted with from a healthy place. I believe the healthiest and most rewarding place to live from is in a place where you can give with no expectations. It’s a place where giving becomes rewarding. Every person on earth has been given a gift by God to make the world better in some capacity. From the way we think, the talent set we’ve been given, the way we listen, and simply showing up where you are at with the uniqueness you carry.
Part of the identity and gift mix is understanding that you are a gift to humanity. Now with this understanding life becomes even more exciting because there’s an underlying excited that you get to live with because you know that you can make your spheres of influence better in some kind of way. This shouldn’t provoke you to announce to your new friend group that you have been sent by God to make their lives better rather it should provoke you to listen, ask questions, and wait for the opportune times to serve with passion.
The identity and gift mix can be discovered by questioning your passions, exposing yourself to different missions, or simply just stepping into that thing you have been thinking of for so long and not letting fear hold you back. What thing do you participate in that brings you life? That thing that you say to yourself I can do this forever? That’s the starting place.
WIth that being said boundaries become extremely important. Boundaries are kind of like those guardrails that kids or people who can’t stay in the lane use when bowling. Boundaries help you stay in the lane that you were meant to run in. They assist you in what to give your yes to and what to say no to. If you want to guard and gird your life, then get boundaries and stick to them.
Communicate them, commit to them, and let them be birthed from a place in your heart where convictions to impact the world reside.