Be Your Own Best Version

While freshly taught and recorded for this week, today’s topic is a Cinthia-Classic and relates to her reason for doing this podcast in the first place!  Cinthia has been saying, “Be your own best version,” since 2010, but what does she mean by that?  What is the difference between striving to meet lists of expectations (your own or other people’s) and being the best version of yourself?

Cinthia recalled some highlights from her own story today, describing her struggle with performance-oriented behavior, which is a constant attempt to achieve a sense of personal value by showing others who you are and what you do.  This approach to life, says Cinthia, is a trap, a “spinning wheel,” an image-focused system that becomes deceptive and disillusioning, even for those others might think are winning at life.  In fact, Cinthia achieved quite a bit of success during that time; she met lots of goals and had a life that appeared triumphant in many ways.  Somehow, though, she found herself continually in the grip of stress and disillusionment, always feeling her achievements weren’t quite enough to justify her existence or make her feel worthwhile.  In fact, she didn’t like herself very much at all, and she lived in fear that others would see her for what she thought she was.  At this point, having exhausted her own best attempts at managing her life, Cinthia offered her life back to God, though she was not sure He would want it and was unable to comprehend that she was valuable to Him.  She found to her surprise that He did value her --- that He had chosen to create her, even knowing all the choices she would make.  She realized that He had made her on purpose and that she was the only one He would ever make in exactly this way.  And, when she believed that, everything changed.

What Cinthia learned was that God is the One Who determines the value of everything.  He is the Creator, and, if He values something, it is valuable.  This means that created beings like humans do not determine our value by our own behavior, no matter how good or bad that behavior is.  Our behavior determines a lot of things about how our lives unfold, and God allows us freedom to choose whether or not to actively cooperate with His design for us.  But God’s ever-present interest in each person, His choice to create each of us even while fully aware of the choices we would make, means that each of us has what is called “guaranteed value.”  We can’t earn it or revoke it.  Consider Psalm 139.  Consider a one-hundred-dollar bill that has been crumpled, trampled, left in the dumpster, used for evil purposes, and more -- regardless of where it has been or the purposes for which it had been used by others, that bill is still worth one hundred dollars.  Whether the bill is accomplishing its highest purpose is irrelevant to its value because that value is predetermined by its makers.  Similarly, we cannot increase or decrease our own value, nor can others by their treatment or opinions of us.  Even our sin, though grievous to God because He knows its consequences, does not change our value.  Romans 5:8 says that Christ died for us “while we were yet sinners,” at our worst.   

What does this mean for you?  God acted and continues to act upon His own choice to love you.  He does not depend on you to ensure your own value.  He chooses you.  He wants you.  He values you.  And so, while other things in life fluctuate, your value remains the same because it flows from the One Who does not change. 

This does not “feel true” for many of us.  Sometimes the only way we can access the reality of it is through faith.  Just as we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for us and rose from the dead, that He ascended into Heaven and sent His Holy Spirit to live in the hearts of those who trust in Him, we must also accept by faith that our value is determined by our Creator and not by ourselves.  It may not “feel true” right now, but we can choose to place our faith in this reality regardless of our feelings and to act on this reality whether or not we feel like doing so.  Remember, feelings can be real without being true.  So step toward Him confidently, knowing that He corrects His children without condemning them (Romans 8:1).

The realization of all this in about 2010 gave Cinthia the idea of focusing her efforts on being “her own best version,” meaning that she would put her efforts into cooperating with the design God has for her rather than on trying to earn her value, be what someone else wanted, or compete with other people. And, since these concepts applied to all the other human beings, too, she started teaching others the same idea.  Some core truths came with this:  Each person (including you) is alive for a reason, created on purpose by God with a particular and unique design.  Each person has the power to effect change in the world, which means for you that, regardless of your position in life, you will affect people, places, and things.  You have choices about this impact. 

Several hundred years ago, Thomas a Kempis stated, “Everywhere you go, there you are.”  You can survive there or thrive there.  You choose, consciously or unconsciously, whether or not to live proactively.  For today’s purposes, this leads to two basic questions: (1) Are you the best version of yourself?  And what does that look like? (2) If not, what is holding you back from being your own best version? How do you need to manage yourself in order to grow toward being your own best version?  Remember, nobody can succeed or mess up like you can.  You are an original, but dysfunction is not original or creative.  Don’t let the predictable and the common steal what is unique to you.  Are there aspects of your past that are controlling your present?  If so, deal with your past so that you can be in the present and enter fully into your future.  God made you on purpose with a unique design.  What will it look like for you to live into that design?