March 27: LABELS ARE HELPFUL FOR GROCERIES, NOT PEOPLE.

Affirmation: Life Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful.

Ponder, Practice: The affirmation today reminds me that each day is beautiful because Gid made me and gives me life. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Whatever is happening in your life today look for God’s presence with you.
“The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.“ ‭‭Job‬ ‭33‬:‭4‬

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Reading for Today

Walk in Grace. Live in Love. by Bob Goff

March 27

LABELS ARE HELPFUL FOR GROCERIES, NOT PEOPLE. 

Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight. 

MATTHEW 12:18 

 

When a trial lawyer is picking a jury, there's not a lot of information to go on. How people dress, the inflection of their voices, the look on their faces, how they sit in a chair. It's not much, but that's what they use to figure people out. 

We all do the same. Have you ever taken a sip of a drink expecting it to be one flavor but it turns out to be something else? If you're a die-hard Coca-Cola fan, you know what I'm talking about. 

Sometimes it's good to know what's inside the bottle before you drink it, and that's where labels come in. Labels give us a trustworthy starting point and help us batch the little details of our lives in useful ways. They help adjust our expectations and find what we're looking for within the brackets of our desires. 
Pizza = cheesy, delicious, guilty pleasure. Kale = cardboard, disgusting, not food. Ice cream = breakfast food, right? 

It's all well and good scrounging through the fridge. The trouble starts, though, when we do the same with people. Our minds want to kick into human label makers. Without realizing what we're doing, we can find our­selves running around putting stickers on all the people we know (and some we don't know!). 
Lazy, nerdy, avoidable; charming, the funny guy, full of themselves; pretty, popular, will say no to promposal. 

Labels can be helpful, but when we let other people decide who we are, that's when we need some adjustments. We can't be poured into convenient identity containers. We're people after all-each one of us expertly crafted to uniquely display aspects of an immeasurable love. 

We can't stop other people from making judgments about us based on very little information, but we can pump the brakes when it comes to doing it ourselves. Let's stop giving control to other people to figure us out. Leave sizing people up to lawyers and undertakers. Don't let other people decide who you are. Perhaps one of the best ways to start is to rip off the stickers we've placed on other people. 

Whose voice is loudest when it comes to telling you who you are? What's different between their voice and God's?