God’s favorite
A reflection based on Micah 7:7-11
You are his beloved
Who am I, really?
Sometimes that question just hits you, doesn’t it? “Who am I, really?” How do I come across to others? And what do they truly think of me? Even Jesus asked these very questions to His followers while they were praying together. First, He asked generally: “Who do people say I am?” But then, He made it personal: “And who do you say I am?”
You know, people you see every day often have a completely different picture of you than those you know more fleetingly. Jesus asks us the same question: “What have you seen of Me? Have you truly come to know My heart? Do you grasp what drives Me, what My passion is? Do you understand the relationship I have with My Father?” Jesus was complete, totally one with what God desired. He is the ultimate example of how God wants to make us, with a little help from the Holy Spirit.
The world is a bit broken
Let’s be honest, the world’s a mess. Just think about Zadkine’s famous statue in Rotterdam, ‘The Destroyed City’: a city from which the heart has been ripped out. That’s how evil has also severely damaged the human heart. And you see it all around you: people feeling down, relationships falling apart, marriages hitting the rocks, and burnouts becoming almost standard.
The greatest pain is that we’ve drifted so far from God. And often, that also leads us to become increasingly distant from the people around us: your partner, your children, your family, your friends, and ultimately, even from yourself. The numbers don’t lie: a lot of people have experienced terrible things. We’re full of wrong ideas, we don’t feel fit, we have bizarre expectations, and our relationships are often a disaster.
The Bible talked about this long ago. The prophet Micah wrote: “For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a person’s enemies are the people of their own household.” A powerful example of this was recently seen on TV in a documentary about children from a strict religious group. Some hadn’t seen their parents in twenty-five years – can you imagine that?
What if things go wrong?
All this “brokenness” has huge consequences. Many people feel worthless and have a pretty negative self-image. Prophet Micah put it this way: “Woe is me! For I am like those who gather summer fruit, like those who glean grapes after the vintage; there is no cluster to eat, no early fig for which I hunger.”
Questions like “Who am I?”, “What have I made of myself?”, “How do others see me?”, and “Can I even do this?” are really nothing new. Even major biblical figures wrestled with them. Moses wondered: “But who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And David said: “Who am I, and what is my family, that I should become the king’s son-in-law?”
A student pastor at a Christian university noted that three-quarters of the students who came to him were struggling with that one question: “Who am I?” They would say things like: “I believe God finds me valuable, but I still feel inferior,” or “I believe God is near, but I don’t feel it.”
A negative self-image destroys you
These struggles often lead to sadness, anxiety, insecurity, and that nagging feeling of inferiority. We often see the negative in ourselves rather than the positive. People battle with weaknesses, addictions, and inadequacy. But condemnation? That really doesn’t help. Harsh, threatening sermons solve nothing.
In Jan Siebelink’s book ‘Knielde op een bed violen’ (Kneeling on a Bed of Violets), you see how religious oppression only led to deeper misery. The author noted: “I have not seen people freed because they were spoken to harshly and condemnatorily.” In this novel, he portrays the suffocating religious climate in which his protagonist, Hans Sievez, grows up, under the yoke of strict Reformed education, where everyone who wasn’t ‘holy enough’ was reacted to harshly and judgmentally.
God sees you very differently
However you think about yourself, God sees it completely differently. He wants nothing more than for you to start seeing yourself as He sees you – through the eyes of Jesus. Even if much has gone wrong in your life, even if you’ve made mistakes: you can be forgiven. If you haven’t done that yet, you can start today.
Today’s question is: how does God see me? God wants to liberate us to receive true love. Many people find it difficult to accept love, but God heals precisely through love. His love breaks down hard walls of indifference, rebelliousness, and inner resistance. We are allowed to learn to live by the Holy Spirit, close to Jesus’ heart. He wants to guide us, teach us, give us counsel, and make us completely whole – whole, not broken.
Becoming whole through unity
In the Jewish faith, a person is a complete whole. The goal is for you to be completely restored from within. Matthew 5:48 states: “You are to be perfect.” The word used here for ‘perfect’ is tamim, which means: flawless, whole, and complete. God wants you to be a complete person, just as He is. He is the Healer.
We used to sing sometimes: “Take me, break me…”, but that actually doesn’t align with the Bible. God doesn’t want to break us – that’s the work of the devil. God wants to restore us and make us complete. Isaiah writes: “A bruised reed he will not break,” and Matthew adds: “and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.” Beautiful, isn’t it?
Deliverance and restoration through love
Our help comes from the Lord. That One has revealed Himself in His Son: Jesus, which means “God is salvation.” Through love, restoration comes into your life. You gain more confidence, you start looking more openly without distrust, you become more open in your attitude. You learn to receive love and you become aware: I am loved, I am valuable to God and to people.
This is the core of the good news: you are His beloved. Not because you perform so well or are so perfect, but simply because He loves you as you are and wants to heal and restore you to the person He intended you to be.
@wimvanputten