What's your home town?

      When we allow other people’s interactions with us to determine how we feel about God’s purposes for our lives we will become discouraged.

      Jesus could do no miracles in his home town (Mark 6:1-6 NIV). They didn’t respect him or the role God had given him. Sometimes the very people you’ve grown up with are the very people who miss God’s plans in you. One reason this happens is because they don’t allow themselves to see you in a new light. You will always be the same person in their eyes.

     Jesus’ hometown couldn’t see He was anointed by God and they missed the blessings He carried. How much more will people over look your achievements, your changed life, your gifts and talents?

      Have you ever been to a family event where everyone treated you with little to no respect? Or your parent’s see you as a child even though you have children of your own? They can’t see you as anything other than what you were. This can be discouraging especially when God is doing new and unusual things in your life.  

      Maybe people at your job or church show you respect and honor who God has shaped you to be, but over the holidays with family you realize you are still the same old person in your family’s eyes.  This is common for many people, especially those who have experienced drastic transformations. Not everyone is willing or able to shift their view.  If a town couldn’t see the hand of God of Jesus, how much more will our transformations pale in comparison?

    We’d like to think when God is using us that everyone will cheer and make note, but that is not the case.  We will learn early on that God is our pat on the back; God holds our identity, not man. It’s easy to be rattled by someone's opinion of us, but we all have to learn to hold our God given place no matter how people act. Everyone will not see what God is doing in you.

     Your “home town”, whatever that may be for you, may never grow past their first impression of you from decades ago, but that doesn’t take away from God’s transformation in you. He will use you somewhere else, just like He used Jesus.

          If only we could learn to see people for who they are today - in this moment. If only we could learn to see God’s hand on people and let go of our first impressions that are often wrong and full of prejudices -  exposing our own hearts and not the hearts of others. If only Jesus’ home town took another look, if only they let go of what they knew and saw Jesus for whom he was in the moment. How many blessings are missing out on? How many people do we over look? We all do it and we’ve all had it done to us.

     You are who God says you are whether anyone ever knows it. You are who God says you are whether anyone recognizes it or honors it. You are God’s workmanship created with a purpose and bought with a price. Don’t be rattled by the attitudes and judgments of man.

     And let us learn from our own rejections to not miss God’s hand on people because we too refuse to take another look.