Personal Challenge #1 Seeing yourself as God sees you. Seeing others as God sees them.

Sexual impurity, mistakes I’d made, and overall, life itself had impacted the way I saw myself, the way I saw God, the way I thought God saw me, and the way I saw men. 

When I was needing to learn truth, that God loved me, I looked at pictures of myself as a very young girl. I knew without a doubt that He loved me then, before any mistakes. Then I realized that, even after 34 years of life and many mistakes, God loves me the same way He loves His Son (John 17:23)! When I struggled with negative feelings about myself, I think I couldn’t see how God could love me, and it was through that distorted reflection that I saw myself. Now, even when I see pictures from when I was at my worst, I have deep compassion for that girl, similar to how I imagine God feels about her! 

I wrote this in 2010: “This month, will I choose to continue believing the lies of satan – that I have little value and worth – OR will I choose to believe TRUTH – what God says. Even if I don’t feel it, it’s true. I have value.” 

During the healing process when God was building me back up again, I believed some really terrible things about myself. I wrote these out and I looked for the truth pertaining to those things in the Bible. It was painful, and almost impossible to write something contrary to how I felt, but incredibly, bit by bit the lies lost their power and I truly believe the truth now. 

He delighted when He formed you in your mother’s womb. He delighted over your beauty. Every morning He is ready with expressions of love for you. Find your self-esteem in Him, in how He sees you, in what He thinks of you. You are beloved, just how He made you. Hand-made with love by God. Wow. “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14). 

Challenge:

1. Read Psalm 139:13-17 aloud, and after reading, pray out the verses to God. Thank Him, express your amazement, express your desires.

2. Look at a photo of when you were very young, and a photo of when you were at your worst. Ask God to reveal how He feels about you now, and how He felt about you at each of those moments.

3. Write out the thoughts you have about yourself and ask God what the truth is.

4. What are the thoughts you have about men? How do you feel about them? What does God say?

5. What are the thoughts you have about God? How do you feel about Him?

Extra:

Kan-kan-gan is a simple way to pray and worship using just the Psalms.
Choose a Psalm and have each person read one verse. Like a game of volleyball, take turns in giving KANSHA (thanks), KANDOU (praise) or GANBOU (lifting requests) to God in prayer. Alone is also possible.