When You Feel Like You Don't Measure Up

I still remember as if it happened last night how mortified I felt as I struggled to cut a rock-hard pizza for first-time dinner guests. The pizza was ready one hour early, and not knowing what else to do, I left it in the oven on low. By the time our friends arrived, the pizza I’d worked so hard to make had reached the state of petrification. It was just as hard to eat as it was to cut, and I felt pretty low on the Martha Stewart scale.

Years later, I can laugh about it, but at the time, I felt embarrassed in front of new friends. It made me feel like I came up short. Not such a good hostess. Definitely not a good pizza chef.

The petrified pizza incident is long past, but every day I still face all the little ways in which I don’t quite measure up.

• I lose my temper and yell at the kids.
• I realize I just wasted a whole afternoon surfing the Web.
• We run out of toothpaste.  (I’m going on 20 years as a housewife. Can’t I even keep toothpaste in the house?)
• It’s 5:30, and the living room is wrecked with home school materials; there are dust bunnies in the hall, and I can tell that dinner’s gonna be late. Again.
• I can’t seem to lose that 10 lbs. that crept up on me.
• My 49 year old hair is thinning.
• I say something rude to my best friend.

If I focus on myself and my own weaknesses, pretty soon I feel like a hopeless mess. Not quite good enough.

Maybe sometimes you have similar thoughts. The voice of the enemy accuses us. “You don’t measure up. You’re a mess, and you’ll never change.”

But God sees a different you.

He sees the daughter He created for Himself. If you’ve put your faith in Christ, he sees the righteousness and perfection of Jesus when he looks at you.  You are a work in progress, and God sees the person you will be when He’s finished with you.

You are beautiful.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made to show God’s glory in a way that no one else can.  You’re His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for the good works he prepared in advance for you to do. He will complete the good work He began in you.

You are loved.

You’re the apple of His eye, a prized and precious jewel. God demonstrated His love for you by giving His best: his one and only son. Jesus demonstrated His love for you by dying in your place. What can you say to a love like that?

You are chosen.

You are precious and honored in His sight.

You are more than a conqueror.

You are a new creation.

You can do all things in Christ.

Will you join me in choosing to listen to what God says about us? Let’s lift our faces to heaven, so His grace will shine down on us.