“That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

Sarah was a plucky, young college student with confidence to spare. Like most university students, she was full of promise, ideas, energy, and, well, HERSELF.

I can’t blame her.

Most of us are told growing up we can be anything we want and “oh, the places you will go!” It’s enough to make us believe the only thing stopping us is ourselves. If we can just “put our minds to it,” overcome our limiting beliefs, and trust we have what it takes, then confidence is the currency that will buy the destiny that awaits. 

But what happens when we can’t get out of our own way?

What do we do when our limiting beliefs are not simply transcended by a “positive mental attitude?”

And what’s left for us when we stop believing in ourselves?

This is exactly where we found Sarah the night she reached the surprising limits of herself.

Allison and I had spent weeks organizing a prayer room in the heart of our city, where people could come and experience the presence of God in an interactive prayer space. It was a peaceful atmosphere in the cacophonous context of an inner city. And Allison had designed prayer stations throughout the prayer room, which led the pray-er through the questions: who am I, who is God, and how should I live?

When Sarah reached the station on Psalm 139, she was unable to go on.

The prayer station asked participants to look themselves in the mirror, read Psalm 139 (printed and posted on the mirror), and acknowledge the wonderful ways in which God had made them.

An initial reading of Psalm 139 may reveal a heartwarming passage that could be described as “uplifting” or “encouraging.” But Sarah wasn’t using those words. Instead, we were hearing words like, “impossible” or “hard.”

Why?

To be sure, this Psalm of David has its touching, warm-fuzzy moments. Likely one of its most well-known lines depicts a tender Creator-Father in verse 13, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

Yet, the intimacy David describes between God and his fragile, beloved children is also challenging to our guarded psyches. Like our friend Sarah, we might read certain passages and resist out of reflex:

“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” (v. 2)

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7)

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (v. 14)

To be known in this way is to let down our guard. It’s letting God climb over our walls and come closer than our defenses would’ve normally allowed. It’s intimacy.

And for Sarah, it was a tall order to slow down, examine herself in a mirror, and agree with the Psalm’s declaration in v.14 that she is “wonderful” in God’s eyes.

All of her education, experiences, and idealism couldn’t prepare her for a quiet moment with herself in front of a mirror.

“I just couldn’t do it—I don’t know why,” Sarah confided in us.

At Live the More, our hope is that by learning to look through our Father’s gracious, compassionate, and truthful lens, you can let down your defenses and allow God to transform how you view yourself. More than that, if you can risk being loved, you will learn to love yourself as the Lord does. If you can rest in forgiveness, you can learn to forgive yourself. If you can trust what your Heavenly Father says about you, it will liberate you to become your true self.