Before You Do, Be by Victoria James
Before You Do, Be.
By Victoria James
https://www.instagram.com/victoria.dynasty/
Psalms 19:1- 4 (NIV)
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night, they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no address, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
Watch the sun: as it travels around the earth, nothing is left without its warmth. We can feel the sun, see the light, and receive from it. The sun's warmth roars an echo that has no sound, day by day and night by night; we welcome the story of God's goodness and see his marvelous craftsmanship.
The sun's daily journey from one end to the other leaves us with an open area to radiate in the beauty of being his creation, his children, his vessels, his hand throughout the earth. All of this comes as a result of simply existing.
Genesis 1:27 (NIV)
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
What would it be like to be a creation that worships the Lord before uttering a single word or taking any action?
Growing up, I believed that I must go and do so that I could become something. Although that isn't bad, I am learning that this line of thinking is not beneficial to me. To please God, I had to perform for his love. It produced a lot of performance and doing a lot of things for God and without God.
That narrative created a lot of striving and performance in my life. As I continue to dismiss those old patterns, I realize that doing before being is not the gospel. A part of the gospel is Jesus calling each of us to rest because our identity is from God's love, who we are becoming we already are.
Jeremiah 1:5 (NIV) Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
What if the beauty of life is who God created us to be?
Being that preserves the Lord's instructions near and dear to our hearts. Being that honors the heart. Being that shows our flaws and our need for the Lord. Being that embraces the Lord's beauty and treasures. Being who loves both inside and outside. Being the one who follows the Lord's path. Being that allows one to be entirely oneself. Being that is in harmony with the Lord.
I am unlearning what I must do before being. I am growing into the knowledge that the Lord is calling me to be before I ever do.
In our uniqueness, each of us shows a side of God's face when we begin to be. Before we are anything, we are a child of God, fully accepted and loved.
My prayer is that you come to know that your destiny isn't what you do; it is who you are becoming. I pray you come to see that truth, that witnesses to others the goodness of God through simply being who we were created to be.
