What Defines You?

August 7, 2016 at 10:15 am · Filed under Christianity, Creativity, Faith, God, Healing, Health, Hope, Inspiration, Life, Living, Love, Meditation, Meditative Writings, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality, Theology, Zen

What exactly is it that defines you?  Is it your family, or your nationality?  Your career, or your dreams?  What is that one, specific thing that defines you as a person … completely?

This is what I found myself meditating on today (from my prior post, “Forget the Pose“).  Early on in my life, as I suppose would be the case for most people, it was my family.  When you are a child, what else is there that could possibly define you more than that?

When family was taken away from me, in my teenage years, I was adrift in the vacuous void of aimless depression … so I suppose that depression defined me.  In my twenties it became self-liberation and my dreams … going after the things I was passionate about, and letting nothing stand in my way.

Over time what I have chosen to define me has changed several times: a couple of times it became people I fell in love with, another time it became avoiding rejection at all costs, and at one point it was religion as well.

Here’s the thing though … ALL of those phases I described are exactly that … PHASES!  They don’t define me any more than a Magnolia flower defines the tree.  I made the decision to make them define me though … I wanted to be in control, because being OUT of control was way too scary a thing for me.

Now, I am at a new place … God defines me.  The old things keep clawing at my mind to find their way into control … but I don’t even have to fight them any more.  Once they get in?  They come face to face with a Loving and Living God within me who has lit my Soul on fire … nothing else can take up residence in that place any longer.

Of course, that takes a certain amount of work as well.  It’s not enough to just say that God defines you … you have to put in the work to make that reality.  For me that means spending at least an hour or two with God each day.  It was work for a while … now I find that I am loathe to leave God’s presence.  Today was like that … an hour went by, and I automatically thought, “Okay, time to get up and go about my day.”  Then I simply decided to just stay there … and spend some more time connecting with God … soaking in that Divine presence and Love.

So, yeah … there still are things that try to wrest control away … home life, love, the future and all the vagueness that entails.  My mind struggles to try and DEFINE something, so that I can be in control.  It’s like I needed all of those things, or people, to be there to take care of me in some way … so that I could be good enough … because it is clear that I obviously have been thinking that I am not good enough, or worthy enough.

God told me this today, “YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH.”

THAT is something to define me … that with God at the center of my being: I am good enough … all things are possible with Love ablaze in your heart.  I can let go … there is no need to fight, or cling, or push … just let go, and BE … whoever, and wherever, and whatever it is that God guides me to be.

Source: What Defines You?

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