Unleashed

One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—and I will meditate on your wonderful works. Psalm 145:4-5, NIV

FOR YEARS I’VE felt self-conscious about my big mouth—both its size and its opinions. I’m loud, boisterous, and have a personality that sometimes feels entirely too much. But here’s the thing: Aren’t we all self-conscious about something being too big in our lives—whether it’s our body or our character?

Sometimes our knee-jerk reaction to our insecurities is to tell our sisters, “Be big, be proud, be loud, be you!” Especially when our culture shouts this message at us too.

But there’s something I want to caution against here. If God created us in all our big and small ways, and yet we are also born sinful, then what we don’t need is more pride and puffing up. What we need is a gospel-centered reality in our stories. We need to take our big personalities, curves, and fears and submit them to an even bigger King, asking Him how to see them, use them, and have a Kingdom view on them.

Maybe you have big opinions, and Jesus wants you to practice how and when you bust them out. Or maybe you have a big personality and He wants you to unleash it. Maybe you have big curves, and Jesus wants you to love them and speak beauty over them, or maybe He desires for you to start moving your body and take better care of those curves.

Let’s take our “I am too much” to the King and see what He says. He wants to sing over you. He wants to redeem the big, brash, mouthy statements. He wants to bring peace to your overwhelming fears. He wants to help you take care of your body and emotions and use them for His glory.

God doesn’t want to make us small. Please don’t hear me say that. He made us with utmost beauty just as He made majestic mountains, expansive oceans, and bold sunsets. It’s not about diminishing ourselves; it’s about submitting ourselves to a good King. Our world is in need of big, brave thinking and big, bold celebration and big, beautiful mouths so that we can bring big praise to our God, big change to the world’s injustices, and big grace to ourselves and those around us. May we find the grace today to refine our thoughts and knee-jerk reactions and take our “too much” to the King.

GRACE REFLECTION: Identify what feels like “too much” in your life. Is it your personality, opinions, anxiety, fears? Take it to the King, and ask Him to show you how He can be glorified through it.