Have you ever looked at yourself in a photo and cringed, or seen yourself in a video and thought – Yich – do I really look that bad? Other people don’t seem to have a problem with how you look, but somehow you always do. Today, we’re going to discover how you can be really happy with who you are.   Being Happy with Who I Am As I look around at people, big, small, black, white, young, old … what I see is an awful lot of people who aren't happy with their lot in life. And as you talk to them, what it often comes down to is not that they're not happy with their lot and the things that are going on – although that's sometimes part of it – but something much deeper going on. Because more often than not, they're not happy with who they are. In our last program, we chatted about the fact, that often, that's because we feel we don't measure up to what the world expects of us but today, I'd like to go even deeper than that again. Let me ask you, forgetting everything that goes on around you, when you're alone in a quiet room, completely alone, do you like who you are? Are you excited about who you are … your potential? Do you enjoy your own company? Or are you one of these people who can't stand to see themselves in a photograph or in a mirror? Every now and then I think to myself, "it's time to get right in your face about something", and today’s one of those days. I mean, I don't mean to shove anything down your throat, that's never my intention but I don't know, I just feel that today it's time to really challenge you about how you see yourself. I'm someone who for many, many years, in fact the first 36 years of my life, appeared to be so confident on the outside. I have to tell you, everyone who ever met me thought to themselves, "this guy is so confident". But on the inside, which after all is where we live and where we feel and where we laugh and where we cry, I wasn't happy with who I was. People would never have guessed it, because in my confidence I used to roll over the top of them. I'm not talking about the things that we do but who we actually are. As a woman by the name of Joyce Meyer says, "It's not our do that I'm talking about but our who." I didn't like my "who", I didn't like myself and you know the more I tried to pump myself up in my own eyes and in the eyes of others, somehow the lower I sank in my own estimation. But the very day, the very instant that I gave my life to Jesus back in 1995, from that moment onward I knew I was okay. I've thought a lot about this and I thought why did it happen like that? It's one of those things that changed in an instant for me, why? This is such a deep thing. My own self image had been plaguing me for years and years. How could it change in an instant? So far as I can see, there's only one answer because on that day I felt accepted and I felt loved in a whole new way, at a whole different level. Different people believe different things. Oh – whatever you believe – let me ask you this? Does your belief system, does your faith – whatever that is – make you feel loved and accepted? Does it bring healing to that deep, nagging suspicion that you’re not good enough? Does it bring you into a place where you are truly happy and content with who you are? I never used to be able to look at myself in a photo without cringing. I recently had a photo shoot, something I have to do from time to time, to get some images to use on websites and in the back of my books, that sort of thing. And when the photos came back, I looked at them and I was really happy with what I saw. I’m never going to win a beauty competition, you understand – that’s because I’m just a pretty ordinary looking kind of man. But as I looked at those photos, I smiled, because I realised that I now like myself. I didn't become Mr Perfect overnight and all my faults and all my failures and all my weaknesses didn't disappear in an instant, it's not how it works. Sometimes I make mistakes – I don’t like that. So I get up and learn, and work on my weaknesses. But fundamentally, these days, I’m really happy with who I am … and indeed with who I’m not. So change in me didn't happen overnight but the thing that did happen is that I knew that God had accepted me just as I was and that even though I could see all the things I'd done wrong, that I was completely forgiven. He came to me and said, "Now, that you have a new beginning let me help you to change." That’s the thing, I thought if God sees me that way maybe it's time for me to see me that way and still today there are some things that I'm really good at and others that I'm just not and I may never be. Some of the things that come naturally to you, I'll never be able to do it’s unconditional love that brought me to a point with all my heart, I'm delighted to be who I am. I often say to my wife, Jacqui, "I'm so glad I'm me, I never want to be anyone else." That is a gift from God because I never liked me before. Let me get in your face and ask you a question, is it time for you to ask yourself do I see myself the way God does? Do I love me in the right way, not proud and arrogant but in a humble delight in who he made me to be? Because how can you and I possibly ever be the me we were meant to be and live the life we were created to live, if we don't like who we are. When we compare ourselves to other people and think – Wow, I wish I was like him, or I wish I was like her … we’re completely missing the point. Completely. I will never be a basketball player, because I’m too short. I will never be a surgeon, because I don’t have the skill in my hands. I will never be a pop star, because I can’t sing. But what I can be, is the best me that I can possibly be. And you know something – that’s just fine with me. And the reason it’s fine with me is that I was handcrafted by God and the love that He’s shown me is the unconditional love of Jesus … Jesus His one and only Son, who died so that I might be forgiven. We can’t truly be happy with who we are, until we know beyond any shadow of doubt that Jesus died to pay for all our shortcomings and failings and because the price is fully paid, we can now stand before God completely forgiven, completely whole, completely loved. And if you’ve ever stood in that place – with your faith in Jesus … Jesus alone – you will know that the acceptance of God is what makes you whole. The love and acceptance of God – is what sets us free to see ourselves through His eyes.   Discovering My Gift I think we all have a sense of wanting to fulfil our destiny, doing the things we're meant to do, achieving the things we're meant to achieve and being the person we're meant to be. But the more I talk to people the more I discover how many aren't happy with who they are. I spent a good many years of my life comparing myself with other people, here's how it goes. Here’s what we do when we compare ourselves with other people: all we see, are their good points: 'he's athletic and good looking, and she's really intelligent, and he's caring, and she's so perceptive about people, boy he's got such great hand-eye co-ordination, that couple over there everyone seems to like them. He is such a good cook, she has her house so tidy, they have such well behaved kids.' You see what's going on here right? We construct some super human unreality which is a pastiche of the very best points of everyone we know and then when we don't live up to that unreality, all of a sudden we come to the conclusion that …, "Ah, I'm a failure". Never mind that everybody we know is good a some things and not at others, never mind that each one of those people has weaknesses as well as strengths. We tend to construct an unrealistic image of who we should be and then we spend a lifetime, fuelled by the advertising industry - with all these images of success - we spend a lifeti...

Released on 14 May 2021