The Identity Conflict: Doing vs Being

When we were kids, we'd say; "I want to "be" a ______ when I grow up. As adults, we get asked: "What do you "do?" It's interesting how culture moves us away from identity as a whole person. Many forget how to "be." We were taught how to behave to avoid punishment, we were graded in school, we strived to get to the top in a survival of the fittest world. We can become consumed by all we "do" and can easily forget who we "are." What we do is only part of our identity. We are not just a mind and a body, but a spirit with a purpose. We were designed to experience fullness of identity, not incompleteness.

To be complete, we must consider what we believe about ourselves and our purpose on earth. True identity can only grow fully if we try to see ourselves as God does. But if we haven't awakened to the truth of His love for us, we are in a state of spiritual slumber, leaving a void inside. This leads us to strive for identity, not live from it. Many don't seek this part of who they are until their final days, when their body begins to weaken, their spirit becomes more present. They begin to regret not becoming all they could've been.  

When we realize we are responsible for our beliefs, God begins to show us who we are in His eyes; not the shame of separation, but in forgiveness and mercy as adopted children. If we've received the blood of Jesus and have become a new creation in Christ, He can't see what's wrong with us; He sees what's been missing. He leads us in our next steps in becoming like Jesus. As we stay connected, we outgrow our old nature, just as a caterpillar outgrows his lower nature, seems to die but awakens to it's glorified nature. 2 Corinthians 5:17. "...old things have passed away and all things become new."

In the same way, Christ forms within us as we meditate on His truths and what is forming inside. Our spiritual lenses begin to change and our true condition becomes more illuminated in us. Our transforming mind begins to align with the mind of Christ. (Romans 12:2). We stop working against our selves and actually let God love the parts that are broken in need of transformation. We learn to trust His heart and be real about things once hidden from others. 

Every challenge we face isn't wasted. Its purpose is to emotionally heal and spiritually connect with the Father of our spirit. Trials help us face our weaknesses of character. Even Jesus learned obedience by what He suffered. Through each challenge we become more aware of what's inside and begin to strengthen who we are becoming as an adopted child. We learn not to strive to survive as we did as a disconnected orphan, but as His very own, we learn to thrive and just be .

Jesus experienced rejection and opposition. This same grace is available in our trials which lead to victory over the evils of this world. 

The world  and everything in it is going through a literal shaking. The bible states that "everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that only his glory is left in us." Hebrews 12:27 (paraphrased) In order for Christ to be formed in us, these quakes expose selfish character to show us what/who we are not. Don't let fear keep you from discovering the essence of you. Leave the false comfort of the old ways. Don’t hide from God. But we also find out the essence of who we are! It's a good time to get real about what’s inside.

 

For more information on my Life Coaching Services and other products visit my website at:

Recoveredessence.com 

© Christine Wilson The Identity Conflict: Doing vs Being 2021

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christine Wilson with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Seeing God through a Lens of Love not Fear

Seeing God through a Clear Lens

I crave clarity about God and things unknown, particularly when it comes to the benefit of healing the soul. I crave the truth regarding love since it's the foundation our lives were to be built on. I crave resolve for the hurting soul. But this meant I had to be willing to change some preconceived ideas about God. I had to be willing to let the Spirit of God renew my mind from former beliefs about my value and the greatness of God’s love for me, especially when those who were to be responsible or loyal, forsook me instead. I had a choice between love or hate after experiencing faulty expressions of love. I refused to let hate win over my soul or to believe it was Gods fault.

Is God an Enabler or a Tyrant?

God's desire is for us to know His heart, but many are deceived and see God as distant, not intimate or compassionate. On the other extreme, people see Him enabling their egocentric ways, not showing them correction, because they choose to avoid accountability. Others would rather see Him as not personal, replacing a relational God for an impersonal word like “Universe.” Life may seem easier or safer within that mindset because then one can retain more control, but the inner child may never completely healed. Trust me, it’s better to heal, than to hide what hurts. For me, I had to choose to trust God, since there was nobody else to run to.Trusting in a true and just love on an intimate level must be discovered if we ever want to be whole. 

Seeing God as personal is too scary for many people. I guarded my heart from Him at an intimate level for years. If God was so good, why did He allow such bad things? God doesn’t change, but we are subject to deception and evil influences in this life. It's up to us to learn and discern the truth. 

Be Willing to Tear Down the Walls

If we want to grow spiritually and change our beliefs about Him, it requires humility and sometimes adversity to see the error of our ways. Then we might begin to experience the power of His love and grace through our suffering. It means deconstructing the survival walls built from pain and fear from years past. But surviving is so much less than thriving. God wants to rescue us from the deception and lies that keep us from knowing Him and the power available to us to thrive. This takes surrender and abandon. It takes the willingness to be teachable and admit we were mistaken. The highest form of truth and love available to mankind is given to the searching soul. Before darkness came, mankind was one with God without walls.

Scripture reveals that Jesus was the imprint of the love of God to us. Jesus was God’s love personified. God’s nature was depicted in the life of Christ as “one” being with God.

John 17:21 states: that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

This is the same connection God wants with us, but it requires a willingness to first believe that His love is for us, then second, to see God as He is. The believing part is on us; to choose it. Seeing Him as He is, follows (first) believing who He is to us.

John 20:31 states: “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” 

Believing opens your heart to the truth of Gods great love for you. His self-sacrificing love touching the soul, brings back the lost intimacy with God, our spiritual Father. Without being open to this love, people are emotionally perishing because of a lack of this knowledge. See Hosea 4:6

Experiencing Perfect Love

God is the true lover of our soul, who sent Jesus to take your sin upon Himself, rather than punishing us for it. Yet many, for lack of knowledge and acceptance of His love, would rather distance themselves out of fear and denial. Denying their need for His love allows the building of a faulty, presumably “safe” belief system that's familiar and one we can control. Unknowingly many fall prey to strategies of the deceiver who despises the fact we could be changed and emotionally renewed by a knowledge and experience of Perfect Love. Without realizing, they are limiting their own growth in every area of influence as well.

There is increasing awareness on mankind's need for an unconditional love. People are catching up with our God designed need for social-emotional learning and emotional intelligence. We see similar ideals being implemented early in life in order to lay a love-built foundation in all three dimensions of our lives, (spirit, soul and body). 

Many adults are starting to use reframing tools like Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) We need to get back to the very root of our problems. When life is not built on love, it is built on fear. Jesus was not fearful, but confident in God's love.

"There is no fear in love but Perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." 1 John 4:18 ESV 

Instead of seeing God as distant and lacking empathy, we trust in the transformational power of His grace. We see Him not as punishing us, but wanting to change faulty beliefs which led us astray from His best for us. When we come home to Him, He doesn't scold or embarrass us, but instead picks us up and clothes us in His righteousness. He doesn't call us out to shame and punish us for coming to Him. His loving-kindness calls us up into who we really are; His beloved. As we grow up (spirit, soul and body) we learn by Christ's example, it's not all about self (apart from God) but becoming one with Him. 

Today, why not let God love you as the true person you are? No longer should you be a slave to fear, but by faith be the son or daughter He has chosen you to be.

"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” Romans 8:15 ESV

(c) Copyright 2015 Learning to See Father God as He Is

For those who may be interested in my life coaching, find me at:

 http://www.recoveredessence.com/

For those interested in counseling or EMDR, contact my husband Malcolm. Find him at:

http://wilsonwellnesscounseling.com/

Exposing Our Toxic Roots

Toxic Roots

 My parents splitting seemed to be the worst thing that could happen as an 11 year old. It left a hole in my heart that made me think I'd be complete if I made my own happy family one day. 

My dream became reality, but within a few years, so did my nightmare. The things I feared happened in my own marriage. Familiar emotions from childhood resurfaced for a reason. They were meant to be healed.
Our mental root systems have been influenced by our early environments at home. Our family of origin was the soil that had toxicity before we came along. The root system grew dysfunctional for years.  
So for me to heal, I had to learn to trust a God I couldn't see. His ways are not our ways. As I surrendered my control to a loving God, the stronger I became. It took many years to learn where I end and God begins. We all have to work with the soil we were planted in. 

Craving Intimacy (IN-TO- ME -SEE)

We were created to experience intimate connections and belong. Why were some of us drawn to people that may eventually hurt us? Could there have been an underlying attraction overlooked in the beginning? Did our dreams for a happy future develop out of fear and lack of love? Overcoming the toxic relationship requires examining what got us there in first place. Our relationships have something to teach us about our emotional self, our true essence and the incomplete child within.

Dysfunctional relationships are built on shaky foundations and by incomplete people. The poor choices of our ancestors left the family soil toxic in need of redemption. It allows decay which continues to plague us and our kids. Unless someone in the family line breaks the cycle, there remains a propensity for familiar vices. The mental maps created from childhood are very difficult to redesign without guidance and love. It takes conscious effort, humility, and healthy core beliefs to re-map our thoughts, memories and maladaptive beliefs.

Renewing the Mind Through Perfect Love

It is necessary to examine our own foundations before looking at the problems in a present relationship. For me, understanding my emotional programming, combined with the truth of life-replenishing scriptures, I was able to replace the lies with truth. The truth that I was worthy to be loved by the perfect Lover of my soul. 

Regardless of our age, it is important to consider the child within. We all still have some growing up to do, but will our adult ego cooperate with a higher and more trustworthy authority than our imperfect parents? Are we still teachable enough to grow in spiritual and emotional intimacy? Are we willing to see where we were wrong? Or are we as children who want it our way and in our time?

        
God has a plan for us that‘s better than the one we have for ourselves. Unsuccessful relationships can challenge us to explore our emotional and spiritual lives. Most of us don’t realize how valuable we are to God. His love is perfect. He knows right where we hurt. If we accept His love in our hearts and become willing to get Him involved, we become His adopted children. 

Grafted into Love 

God is our perfect loving parent. Like any other meaningful relationship, you’ll have to get to know His true character. Study scriptures that speak of His ways. You will learn He never leaves or forsakes us.  He gave us a comforter to abide in us and gives us strength when we are weak. As we surrender to His ways, grace replaces our need for control. Fear is replaced by love as we learn to trust again. " I am the vine, you are the branches..."John 15:5

His Spirit carries the burdens of what we cannot control. We become dependent on Him. We cannot learn this love on our own with out intimate relationship with Him. because “that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6 ESV). This higher love must be received in true faith, experienced and expressed within us by the Holy Spirit whom God sent to us.

“And I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him for he dwells in you and will be with you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:16-18 ESV

Fertilize the Soil with Scripture and Good Fostering

The bible contains truth, power and authority and can activate His promises in your life. They will help redeem what was lost, leading you to your spiritual inheritance which belong to you as His kid. Anyone who believes and trusts in them will gain wisdom, healing, strength and fulfillment through grace, the power of God’s Holy Spirit working with us. 

God wants to foster your heart and life as you trust Him in faith in your adopted essence. Seek people that will guide you and love you. Consistent reading and fellowship will accelerate the spiritual laws of attraction. Expect to see miracles, divine connections, deeper revelations and confirmation of His hand at work in your life. Your relationship with God will help define the deeper part of you, your spirit, your recovering essence. Learn to become whole as person, and bloom into the creation you were designed to be.

I'd love the opportunity to shorten your journey to your Promised Land and live fully engaged within your Recovered Essence.

“Looking unto Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of our faith.” Hebrews 12:2 KJV

Contact Christine for Life Coaching or more information on The Recovered Essence Program

Recover Your True Essence

Coming out of the Cocoon

I didn't know I wasn't authentic. It was a way of life; pretending I was something I wasn't. If you thought you knew me, I'm sorry I wasn't being honest with you or myself. I’m letting you know that I’m finally coming out with my true identity. I’m not who you thought I was, in fact I’m not who I used to think I was. I’ve been recovering my true essence after a long season of transformation. I have a more secure identity, as I've been rooted and grounded in God's love.

Starting at 38 years old, a deeper truth was unveiled to me and I finally got it. I had opened a part of my heart to live out my God given essence of who I really am. I received God's mercy in a way I never realized I needed. I was too busy proving to myself I was fine. But that image finally crashed. As I tried to put the pieces back together, I began to believe in my heart that I am loved and valued by God. That changed everything.

Truth Exposes Lies

After a failed marriage, betrayed and abused by a husband and feeling forsaken by God Himself, I succumbed to those familiar shame-based beliefs about my worth. I had been seeking to create my own family life from the broken foundation of my own childhood home at 11 years old, (that's me on the book cover at 2 years old.) But when my own marriage fell apart, I was forced to re-evaluate some beliefs that brought me to the end of myself.

It all happened the way it did for a good reason. It gave God something to work with as I finally learned to let Him. Just as a loving earthy Father would guide his child, I had to learn to trust Him. This was a new kind of relationship for me, different from my earthy parents and unfamiliar to my previous ways of finding value. In doing so, I found out not only who I wasn’t but who I was. That’s the basis of Recovered Essence.

The Seed of Perfection 

In this book, I used my own story as a timeline to address some unhealthy beliefs and thoughts that prevent us from becoming who God created us to be. I love to help others expose the lies which hinder them from living their best life possible.

Inside our hearts is a divine seed of perfection that yearns for the perfect love mankind had in the first garden. Life has a way of stealing from that perfect seed by the lies culture feeds us. Finding our true essence is about nourishing that seed to life with the wisdom and power of perfect love. Choosing faith (which is to trust the truth of God's word) is what waters the seed. 

Seeds grow when planted in good soil. It's our past perceptions that poison our soul. It takes a conscious unlearning of all that was wrong and allowing our hearts to grow again. Many of us neglected our very essence because of the cares of this world, past pain and distractions in life.

Imagine having a perfect upbringing, knowing perfect truth, not bound culture by moral relativism. Imagine if you were guided through life, perfectly and uniquely nurtured by love. Imagine as a child being taught relevant scriptures, customized to your maturing identity. Imagine having courage and security, without any fear of rejection. Having been grounded and secured in love, it would overflow to others. You would give out of the abundance of what you were given. That’s the seed that if nourished, would cause the real you to come to fullness and completion.

Scripture states in Ephesians 3:17-19:

... so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.…

So when that seed of divine impartation dwells in you, and you nurture it through an intimate relationship with the very One who created it, it’s only a matter of time before the fullness of that seed begins to flourish in you. Christ in you is that love. His love as the very thing your soul has longed for and it changes the very paradigm on which your life centers on.

Fully You is to be Filled with Him

It’s what Jesus meant when He said;

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5

So if you would like to learn more, especially if a toxic relationship has interrupted the process of finding your true self, I wrote this book for you. You are not alone and you are worthy of a love like you have never known, far beyond your own understanding. Come and experience this love and let it nurture you back to life. 

To receive your copy:

http://www.amazon.com/Recovered-Essence-Toxic-Relationships-Impact-ebook/dp/B010RK33AQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440000031&sr=8-1&keywords=recovered+essence

For more information on my Life Coaching Services and other products visit my website at:

Recoveredessence.com 

© Christine Wilson Recover Your True Essence 2015

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christine Wilson and Recovered Essence Book Launch with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.