Impostor?

Yes, sometimes I think I have a gigantic sign hanging around my neck labeled “impostor.” I desperately try to cover it up with scarves, sweaters, pretty smiles, you name it. But still I see it there, peeking out threatening to expose the true me.

So, I’ve decided to hang it in plain view for all to see.

Mockingly, it jeers its litany: I struggle to trust God on a daily basis. I often believe I am ineffective for Christ. Why would God want to use someone like me? I have dishes in my sink and clothes on the bedroom floor (at least they’re clean). I don’t live life well without someone to take care of. I am a weak, fragile, sheep who can never get her act together. I’m no longer a normal person with a normal life. I just pretend to be a teacher. I’ve got everyone fooled into thinking I have responded in faith… Impostor.

And so the list goes on. Some of it is true. Some of it is lies.

I’m reminded of a professor in college who always said. “Well you should just go get your white t-shirt, your black sharpie marker, and write on it in big letters. I DON’T READ MY BIBLE.”

He’s right. Although some of those things are true, I no longer lug around my impostor sign. What? You just said you hung it there for all to see!

Well, I did, but Someone took it.

Because here’s the REAL truth. Someone came along with his own sign, and labeled it Beautiful. And all around he wrote the words, redeemed, justified, chosen, adopted, reconciled, new, valuable, precious, beloved…

And so this Someone took his Beautiful sign, removed it from his neck, and put it on me! Then he did the most unbelievable thing. He took my IMPOSTOR sign, hung it on Himself, and displayed it in plain view for all the world to see.

“It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.” (Hebrews 13: 9) This is the grace I need to hear. Perhaps you need to hear it too? For surely I am not the only one who tries to take back my sign.

How incomprehensibly lovely it is that I cannot take it back! Someone won’t let me. He tells me constantly, “No, this is who you are now. Beautiful. Because I made you to be so.” (Ephesians 1:3-14, Isaiah 62, Romans 8)

So then my only response left is, “Someone, I adore you.”

Impostor? Not anymore.