Who Told You That?

There are things we believe about ourselves that we have believed for so long, we don’t even question them anymore. We say things like, “I’m not good enough,” “I always mess things up,” “I should be further along by now,” “I’m too old,” “I’m too late,” or “I don’t have what it takes.” And sometimes I think we need to stop and ask a really simple question:

Who told you that?

That question comes straight out of Genesis. Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree God told them not to eat from, and suddenly they were hiding. Adam tells God he was afraid because he was naked, and God asks him, “Who told you that you were naked?”

I love that question. Not because God didn’t know what had happened. Of course He knew. But something had changed in the way Adam saw himself.

And I think that happens to us all the time. Something happens. Someone says something. We fail at something. We get rejected. We compare ourselves to somebody else. We go through a hard season. And before we know it, we have taken an experience and turned it into an identity.

We don’t just say, “That didn’t work.” We say, “I’m a failure.”

We don’t just say, “That person rejected me.” We say, “I’m not wanted.”

We don’t just say, “I’m in a season where I don’t know what’s next.” We say, “I’m behind.”

See the difference?

That’s the script.

And the problem is, after we say those things long enough, they start to feel true.

The world has been giving us language from the moment we were born. It tells us what success is supposed to look like, what beauty is supposed to look like, what a good life is supposed to look like, how much money we should have, where we should be by a certain age, what makes us important, and what makes us valuable.

If we’re not careful, we start measuring ourselves against standards God never gave us.

That’s why I keep coming back to this question:

What does God say about this?

Not what does social media say. Not what does culture say. Not what did that person say. Not even what have I been saying to myself.

What does God say?

Because God’s Word says you are His workmanship. It says you are fearfully and wonderfully made. It says your mind can be renewed. It says He is still working in you. It says your past does not get to have the final word.

That doesn’t mean we pretend hard things didn’t happen. It means we stop letting those things name us.

So here’s something I want you to pay attention to this week. Listen to the way you talk to yourself, especially when you hear yourself saying things like, “I always,” “I never,” “I can’t,” “I’m just,” “I’m too,” or “I’m not.”

When you catch one of those thoughts, don’t beat yourself up over it. Just get curious. Ask yourself where that thought came from. Ask when you started believing it. Ask whether it is actually true.

And most importantly, ask:

Did God say that?

Because sometimes the thing we have been carrying as truth is really just a sentence somebody handed us years ago.

And maybe it’s time to hand it back.

Maybe it’s time to rewrite the script.

So here’s the question I’ll leave you with:

What is one thing you have been saying about yourself that God never said about you?

Write it down. Then underneath it, write:

What does God say?

And start there.

Father, help me recognize the things I have believed that did not come from You. Show me where I have allowed fear, disappointment, comparison, or somebody else’s opinion to shape the way I see myself. Renew my mind with Your truth. Help me hear Your voice more clearly than all the other voices around me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The world writes scripts. God rewrites lives.