Finding My Voice

What IS my voice?

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At a meeting once, someone said, “Find your voice.” And my first thought was, “What is my voice?” For so long I’ve been acting out someone else’s interpretation of a dream I had ages ago. And while I still think there’s some truth in their interpretation, I’ve recently paused that driving force and stepped back.

It’s good to reexamine one’s life from time to time. And the more often we do that, the shorter time it might take. Other times, however, it might take quite a while. That’s what I’m doing with that interpretation — I’m reexamining it. Oh, it’s been confirmed a few times so I believe it’s valid, but, I think, I was living out the way others have wanted it lived out. However, I’m not doing that anymore. I have to find my voice — not the echoes of someone else. But, what does that look like?

This quote showed up in my Inbox this morning and responds to my question. I think I’d push it a little bit, though. Jesus didn’t call Peter to just be “somebody.” No. He called Peter to be his true self, his authentic self. Jesus called Peter to be the True Human being that G*d had created him to be and always wanted him to become. Jesus pushed through all the falseness that Peter had adopted as his own self — the layers and layers of projection that others wanted him to be — and found the Divine within him. Jesus breathed on that spark of Divine Light and Life and it ignited into a flame, a star bursting through the cosmos (see Daniel 12.3). When we push through those layers of falseness, when we become our True Selves, we’ll be that person no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in. “Whether [we’re] preaching or eating; whether [we’re] fishing or healing the sick,” we’ll be the visible image of what True Humanity looks like for those around us. We’ll be the very thing that Jesus called us to be: “Just as the Father sent me, I send you” (John 20.21; MSG¹; emphasis added).

So I’m asking what that might be in my life. How am I to be the “visible image of the invisible G*d,” like Jesus was (Colossians 1.15; NLT²)? By being my True Self. The person G*d created me to be. The True Human creation is groaning for (Romans 8.18-23). I have a lot of layers to deal with but, with G*d’s help, the Light and Life of Christ in me will become brighter and brighter.

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In the Love of the Three in One,
Br. Jack+, LC

1. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

2. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation, Inc. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.