“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?  If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”  Galatians 1:10

Encounters with God change a person permanently. We can not come near Him, hear His voice, and remain as we were. His words do not skim the surface; they pass through us and find the deepest place to land. And as holy and beautiful as that is, it is also costly. Because once God has touched me there, I cannot so easily return to my old ways of relating, hiding, and surviving.

Sanctification is, in many ways, God speaking directly to what is broken. In His presence, my beliefs and perceptions are rearranged. What once felt necessary begins to feel false. If I learned to survive by blending in, by becoming agreeable, by shrinking the truest parts of myself to remain likable, then healing will require more than comfort. It will require surrender. God may ask me to lay down the very strategies that once protected me. And often, the places that were ridiculed, silenced, or misunderstood become the very places where His voice now longs to speak with power.

That is what makes His work so unsettling and so freeing. He calls me out to be the person He created, before I adapted to fit in. And living authentically is not self-expression for its own sake. It is obedience to the person God says I am.

This is where the cost becomes deeply personal, especially with those who have known me for years. Will I let their memory of me become my identity? Or will I be obedient to the fresh call of God on my life? There comes a point when I must decide that fear no longer gets to edit me. I must let the Spirit of God fan into flame what fear taught me to mute.

Lord, give me the courage to be who You created. Not a lesser version.  Whatever you made, You call ‘good’.   Amen