Approved by God

Having recently become a granny I am once again filled with awe.  New borns are the most precious gift to humans.  Through their eyes we have the opportunity to view life with renewed wonder and delight.  It is just amazing how open and receptive they are.  They have no pre-conceived ideas about the world, the people around them or themselves.  They are positive and enthusiastic about life, firmly expecting the good.  Their lives and thought are a perfectly clean slate. 

Yet sadly, too soon, the world and its ideas start to write something else on their clean canvasses.  The baby who chuckled with abandon starts looking for approval from his parents.  The toddler who ran eagerly with wobbly knees to any stranger, starts hiding behind his mommy's legs and the three year old who sang nursery rhymes delightfully off-key now only lip-syncs in the Sunday School choir.

It happens just about to all of us.  We stop trusting our own authentic voice and start to believe the whispers of the world.  We start to crave the approval of others.  Even the voices of our own parents are drowned out by the noise of the world.  Our ears become finely tuned to the frequency of criticism and judgement.  Other people's opinion and assessment of us starts to weigh heavier than that of the people who love us and our self-esteem takes a serious knock.  We forget who and what we really are and we completely disregard the fact that we have been created by a Creator who does not make mistakes.  We have been created perfectly and uniquely, we already have the seal of approval from our Creator, yet we desperately seek the approval of others.

The world is so quick to pass out labels.  We easily attach a tag of "Failure", "Neurotic", "Useless", "Worthless" or such to others as well as to ourselves.  We end up believing these labels and it starts becoming our dominant thoughts and these thoughts start ruling, or worse ruining, our lives.  We become slaves of other peoples', as well as our own, opinions of us.

The following quote is attributed to Buddha:  

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves."
This is so true.  The thoughts which constantly go around in our minds are the ones that are like the regular footsteps making a pathway through a field.  With every thought it becomes engraved on our psyche, and it shapes our behaviour.  We have to stop this negative thought pattern and we do that by starting to believe what the Lord says to us about us.  People seldom truly want to see us prosper or achieve great heights.  They can cope better with us when we are on a level where we are their equal or even less.  Therefore do not allow anyone to limit you or define who you are.  Accept only God's opinion of you.

If you take anything away from today, let it be this: stop seeking the approval of others, rip off the labels, you already carry the Lord's stamp of approval.