Stop Deceiving Yourself

This is a pep talk we both need. Stop deceiving yourself. My life is not better than yours. Your life is not better than mine. We need to focus on being who we are each meant to be.

But I don’t want to be a Perfectionist…

Quite a few years ago, I started studying the Enneagram. Plenty of other personality typing tools had pointed out my bold, aggressive, and take-charge nature, but the Enneagram was a little too accurate in a whole different way. Never had something landed on what was really happening inside my head—I wanted everything, but especially myself, to be perfect.

I don’t want to be an Enneagram 1—the perfectionist, the reformer, the one who tries to make everything right all the time and struggles with the reality of an imperfect world and imperfect people. Really, a Type 1 who comes off as judgmental, rigid, and hard to please?!

Why can’t I be a fun Type 7 or the peace-loving Type 9?

Alas, I’m a Type 1 through and through. And until I started to truly appreciate the benefits of the way God made me, I could not fully embrace who he created me to be. There are lots of benefits to having your Type 1 friends around. We’re not easily swayed off course. Our sense of right and wrong helps us create healthy boundaries. We see detail in ways others can’t.

Your struggles, your doubts, and your challenges are different than mine. Nonetheless, we need to embrace our strengths and our weaknesses for a better collective result.

Stop deceiving yourself, you are who you are for a purpose

There are no better gifts, abilities, or personality types. If I was the Fun Director, we’d all be sorely disappointed.

Yes, there’s always room for growth and improvement in our lives. But growth and improvement lie within the person God created us to be. The idea of being “better” implies that we’re inherently wrong.

God created you on purpose with gifts and characters to fulfill his purpose for you. Stop deceiving yourself with lies about the characteristics God instilled for his purposes. Who you are is not wrong. We all go astray at times, but the core of who we are is who God created us to be.

It’s time to get back to who we are so we can become who God created us to be.

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, LET US USE THEM: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.” Romans 12:3-8 (emphasis added)

A to Z – we everyone

We need who you were created to be.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10

I can’t do what you God has laid out ahead on your path. God wants to use us for something greater than we can imagine.

Your Next Steps:

Please stop deceiving yourself. Stop trying to become someone other than who God created you to be. We will never be content if we can’t appreciate God’s workmanship of us.

Take some time to lavish yourself with praise. What are the ways God created you to serve him? Next, do the same for someone else.