Daily Word of Grace # 69 (June 19, 2020)
In her moving 2018 song “You Say” contemporary Christian singer Lauren Daigle describes something with which all of us struggle: “I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough, every single lie that tells me I will never measure up. Am I more than the sum of every high and low?” Then she prays, “Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know” and continues in the chorus, “You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing. You say I am strong when I think I am weak. And You say I am held when I am falling short, and when I don’t belong, You say I am Yours. And I believe, oh I believe, what You say of me, I believe.” Years of pastoral ministry, and just plain years of life, have shown me Lauren Daigle is not alone, not at all. Many people feel like they are not enough, or feel like they will never measure up (or both)—perhaps even you. And yet the song does not stop there (thankfully), but continues with a prayer for a reminder of who we actually are in Jesus Christ. And that prayer is answered in the most beautiful (and biblical way) because in Jesus Christ you are indeed loved even when you can’t feel a thing (John 3:16), you are indeed strong when you think you are weak (2 Corinthians 12:9-10), you are indeed held in God’s victorious hands even when you are falling short (Isaiah 41:10), and when you don’t belong you are indeed God’s (1 Peter 2:9) because you were bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ on Good Friday (1 Peter 1:18-19). It is not the voices in your mind—what you say about yourself and what others say about you—that carry the day, but rather what God says about you that carries the day, today and every day.
Love and Prayers,
Dave