Do You Know Who You Are? - iBelieve Truth: A Devotional for Women - April 6
Do You Know Who You Are?
By Meg Bucher
“Love must be sincere. Hate was is evil; cling to what is good.” - Romans 12:9 NIV
The magic of a child’s imagination is breathtaking, beautiful, and sincere. Currently, my youngest daughter has been skipping happily throughout the house, singing one of the songs from Disney’s Moana:
“I have crossed the horizon to find you… I know your name… They have stolen the heart from inside you… But this does not define you… This is not who you are… You know who you are…”
As a budding tween, my daughter is experiencing the push and prod of trying to figure out “who she is.” When I pray over her each night, I often ask her… “Do you know who you are?” Then, I assure her of who and Whose she is. I remind her she has a purpose. But still, nothing takes the sting out of growing up.
As a mother, I hate when my kids hurt. When they are left out, bullied, made fun of, and mocked, my anger is very real. Not all anger is bad. Righteous anger, like hating what is evil, is a healthy emotion. It just needs to be directed appropriately.
“Hate” in Romans 12:9 means to “have a horror of.” Around Halloween, the local amusement park celebrates with people running around in spooky costumes. Though my daughter knows they aren’t real, her gut instinct is HORROR. She shrieks and screams and no matter how much courage she builds up on the way to the park, it evaporates the first time someone with scary face paint sneaks up on her.
Evil is supposed to make us shriek with horror. Not just the obviously scary and spooky, but the distorted thoughts that threaten to convince us we’re nothing, that the world would be better off without us, and that we’ll never make it. The VOICE paraphrase of Romans 12:9 reads, “Love others well, and don’t hide behind a mask; love authentically. Despise evil; pursue what is good as if your life depends on it.”
And many lives do. Cling to what is good. CLING. Don’t for a second hold on to or look back at something horrifying. We have to kick evil out of our thoughts and get righteously angry over the evil we see twisting up the world God created. Even if it means we stand alone for a bit.
Do we know who we are? Can we choose to remind each other? Our kids? Our neighbors? Can we find it in us to be brave enough to be kind, even if it means sacrificing our popularity? Our comfort? Our time? Every time we choose to remind someone, and ourselves, who and Whose we are… we are clinging to what is good.
Meg Bucher writes about everyday life within the love of Christ. An author, freelance writer and blogger at Sunny&80, she earned a Marketing/PR degree from Ashland University. Her first book, “Friends with Everyone,” is available on amazon.com. Meg leads/teaches Bible Study in Women’s and Junior High Ministry. Living in Northern Ohio, she’s been wife to Jim for a decade and counting, is mom to two tween daughters, a distance runner, photographer, Cleveland Browns fan.
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If you've been feeling tired, overwhelmed, depleted, or just quietly wondering where God is in the middle of a very full life — this episode is for you. And honestly? It might be for me too, because I'm recording this in one of those seasons myself.
Today we're doing something a little different. Instead of going deep in a passage, we're talking about what to do when deep feels like too much — when you need less, not more. Specifically, I'm walking you through one of my favorite practices for weary seasons: handwriting scripture.
Not typing it. Not scrolling past it. Actually writing it out, slowly, in your own hand — because something happens in your brain when you do that. The words land differently. They go deeper. And over time, they become part of that personal library of God's voice that the Holy Spirit can pull from when you need it most. That's what Psalm 119:11 means when it says I have hidden your word in my heart — it's scripture moving into your long-term memory, where it lives and stays even when you haven't opened your Bible in weeks.
I'm sharing the five verses I wrote out for myself today — and why each one hit me fresh even though I've known some of them for years. This episode is part of our How to Study the Bible Podcast, a show that brings life back to reading the Bible and helps you understand even the hardest parts of Scripture. If this episode helps you know and love God more, be sure to follow the How to Study the Bible Podcast on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an episode!
