Latest / Life By Divine Blueprint / Episode 2: Who Were You Before the World Told You Who to Be?
Transcript
- \: Before anyone told you what was realistic. Who were you? Before somebody told you that you were too loud, too sensitive, too emotional, too ambitious, too quiet, too different, or simply too much? Who were you? Before disappointment taught you to protect your heart? Before responsibility taught you to be practical? Before comparison made you question what came naturally to you? Before you learned which parts of yourself received applause and which parts made other people uncomfortable. Who were you? And maybe an even bigger question is: who did God create you to be before the world ever had an opportunity to tell you who you should become? Welcome back to Life by Divine Blueprint. I'm Lisa, and this is a place for real conversations about returning to original design. If you joined me for our very first episode, we talked about something I deeply believe. The blueprint was always there. You don't have to manufacture your identity. You don't have to invent your worth. And you don't have to become somebody else before your life can carry meaning. There is something God placed within you from the very beginning. But here's where our conversation gets interesting. Because if the blueprint has always been there, why can it sometimes be so difficult to recognize it? I think part of the answer is that life adds layers. Some beautiful, some necessary, and some we were never meant to carry forever. From the time we're young we begin receiving messages about who we are. Some are spoken directly. You're the responsible one. You're the difficult one. You're the smart one. You're too sensitive. You're not athletic, you're shy, or you're the strong one. And others are never spoken at all. We simply learn them. We notice what gets approval. We notice what causes tension. We notice what makes people love us, what makes them withdraw. We notice what earns praise and what gets rejected. And little by little we adapt. Sometimes so gradually that we don't even realize we're doing it. Maybe you learned to become the strong one because nobody else was going to hold everything together. Maybe you became the peacemaker because conflict didn't feel safe. Maybe you became the achiever because achievement made you feel valuable. Maybe you learned to disappear because being seen felt dangerous. Maybe you became fiercely independent because depending on somebody once ended in disappointment. Maybe you learned to say yes when everything inside of you wanted to say no. And here's what I want us to understand. Those adaptions may have helped us navigate certain seasons. But something that helped you survive a season does not necessarily define who you are. And that brings us to a question I want you to carry with you throughout this entire episode. Is this who I am? Or is this who I just learned to be? We talk so much about purpose. What's my calling? What am I supposed to do? What's God's plan for my life? What should I build? What's next? But I'm beginning to believe that sometimes we're asking the second question before we've answered the first. Because before What am I supposed to do? Comes. Who am I? See, purpose grows out of identity. Identity was never meant to grow out of purpose. Think about that. If I believe my value comes from what I accomplish, then every accomplishment becomes responsible for proving that I'm valuable. If my identity comes from being needed, I'll continually find people who need me. If my identity comes from being successful, failure doesn't simply mean something didn't work. Failure begins to feel like I don't work. But when identity is anchored deeper than performance, something changes. I can succeed without success becoming my identity. I can fail without failure becoming my name. I can change careers. I can experience an ending. I can begin again. I can outgrow something. I can discover that. Something I once wanted isn't what I want anymore. And none of those things have the authority to tell me who I am. Because my identity existed before my performance. And that's why returning to original design really matters. Now, when I say original design, I'm not talking about trying to become the person you were when you were eight years old. We are not trying to go backwards. We're going deeper. We're looking beneath the layers, beneath our conditioning, beneath fear, beneath disappointment, beneath other people's expectations. Beneath the identities we've attached to jobs, relationships, titles, accomplishments, and roles. And we're asking, God, what did you put here? What characteristics keep appearing throughout my life? What gifts have followed me from season to season? What breaks my heart? What brings me alive? What do I naturally notice that other people seem to overlook? What do people consistently come to me for? What have I carried inside of me for years that I keep dismissing because I don't understand what to do with it? Because sometimes what we call random, God may call design. And this is where I believe we have to bring the designer back into the conversation. Psalm 139 says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Ephesians 2.10 tells us that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand for us to walk in. Think about that. Workmanship. There is intentionality in that word. You aren't just mass-produced. You are not an accident. You aren't God's afterthought. There is a design. There is intention. There is purpose. And there are things about you that make sense when viewed through the eyes of the one who created you, even if they didn't make sense to the people around you. Maybe the thing you were told was too much is connected to something you're supposed to carry. Maybe your sensitivity allows you to recognize what others miss. Maybe your curiosity was never distraction, it was discovery. Maybe your refusal to accept certain things as just the way they are is connected to your ability to build something different. Maybe your imagination wasn't childish. Maybe it was part of your capacity to see what doesn't exist yet. I'm not saying every personality trait is automatically a calling. I'm saying, what if we become curious about ourselves again? Not self-obsessed, not self-critical, curious. God, why did you make me this way? That's a very different question from. What's wrong with me? There have been seasons in my own life where I've had to ask myself this exact question is this actually me or is this who I learned to be? And sometimes the answer surprised me because there were things I had carried for so long that I assumed they were simply part of my personality until I began realizing some of them were protection. Some were expectations, some were fear, some were ways I learned to keep peace, some were ways I learned to prove myself, and some were simply identities I had outgrown. But underneath all of that, there were things that kept returning. My desire to help people discover purpose. My love of creating. My curiosity about how God designed us. My desire to see people free from the beliefs that keep them living smaller than they were created to live. And this idea of legacy. That our lives aren't only about us, those things kept showing up. Different seasons, different expressions, same thread. And eventually I had to stop dismissing the thread. And maybe that's the part of what a blueprint really looks like. Not just one giant neon sign telling you exactly what you're supposed to do with the next 30 years of your life. Sometimes it's simply a thread, and you begin following it. I wanna do something a little different with you. If you're driving, please keep your eyes open, please. But if you're somewhere safe and comfortable, you can close your eyes if you'd like, put your feet on the floor, relax your shoulders, and take a slow deep breath in. And release it... Let's do it again. Deep breath in and breathe out. Now I want you to become curious, not judgmental, not analytical, just curious. And I'm going to give you a few questions. You don't have to answer them immediately. Just notice what comes up. What did you love before you learned to perform? What did you dream about before somebody told you to be realistic? What came naturally to you before you started comparing yourself to everyone else? What parts of yourself did you silence because they weren't understood? What have you repeatedly been drawn toward throughout your whole life? What makes something inside of you come alive? And what part of yourself have you been calling insignificant? That God may have designed intentionally. Now here's the last question. And don't rush this one. God, what did you place within me that I've forgotten? Take another breath, release it. You don't have to figure everything out today. Actually, I hope you don't try. Remembrance happens layer by layer. But over the next week, I want you to notice. Notice what lights you up inside. Notice what makes you feel emotional. Notice what keeps returning. Notice the ideas you can't seem to shake. Notice what you're naturally drawn toward. Notice the things you've dismissed because they seemed too small, too strange, too impractical, too late or too impossible. They may not all be instructions, they may not all become businesses or ministries or careers, but some of them may be breadcrumbs. And bread comes can lead us home. Maybe returning to original design doesn't begin with discovering some giant hidden purpose. Maybe it begins much more quietly with remembering. Remembering the girl who dreamed. Remembering the part of you that created simply because creating brought you joy. Remembering the voice you stopped using. Remembering the thing you loved before you needed anybody else's permission to love it. And then bringing all of that before God and saying, Show me what was you. Show me what was fear. Show me what I've learned. And show me what you designed. Because we're not trying to return to an old version of ourselves, we're returning to the truth beneath the layers. And from there we become Take one more breath with me. Breathe in. And let it go gently. You were created intentionally. You were designed purposefully. And there are things within you worth remembering. So this week, just follow the breadcrumbs and ask yourself, is this who I am or is this who I learned to be? I'll meet you right back here for our next conversation. This is Life But a Vine Blueprint, Real Conversations, Returning to Original Design. Remember, breathe, become. The blueprint was always there. Welcome home.