"We are as grasshoppers"

During my devotion this morning, I heard something that was quite profound.  Go with me here as I lead with a personal example and bring it all back together.
Many times in my life the Holy Spirit has given me wisdom and helped me in the raising of my children (praise the Lord).  I would not always know the exact place in the Bible where to back up this wisdom, but many times through my studying the Word, would come across things in the Word that confirmed what the Holy Spirit had taught me in my cry as a mother for wisdom in raising my kids.
They are 16, 15, 14, and 8 right now.  In elementary school and especially middle school, children need to be firm in who they are, but at this age it is tested and retested.  Peer pressure and name calling is rampant throughout these ages.  My children would come home at a young age and say, "..... called me this" or "....said I was....".  I would always tell them, "Are you this?  Is this who YOU say you are?  Is this true to be what you know about yourself?  Is this true about what God says about you?"  The answer would always be, "No."  Then I would say, "Then what does it matter?  Why should it move you?  The only truth that matters is what God thinks of us and what we think of ourselves.  People will always try to get you to change those two things, but if you are firm in who you are, you will never be moved."
So this morning I heard a word confirmation on this advice.  We know the story in the Bible of the spies that are sent out to check out the land and they come back with the report that there are giants in the land.  The next statement is what stood out the most to me..."and we are as grasshoppers in their eyes."  They did not ask the giants what they thought of them.  This was their image of THEMSELVES.  This image of themselves was not the image God had of them.  This wrong image of themselves kept them from entering the promised land.  The image they had of themselves.
As I tie this all together, we as parents try to ground our children and have them rooted strongly in confidence and in knowing who they are and not to be moved by outward circumstances.
It makes me question us even as adults, "Who do you say you are?  What is it you believe about yourself?  Is this true about what God says about you?"
In this world there will always be prejudices, racism, and even in small clusters like a middle school you will have those usurping and ranking themselves.  It even goes back to the message we have here in Bulgaria as we are teaching the Roma.   The question still goes back to "what image do you have of yourself"?  How do you see yourself?  Will you believe what others say you are?  Will you be put in the category others put you in?  Will you rise and be who you are and who God says you are?
His Beloved, bought with a price, valuable, and created for His purpose in such a time as this!

Opportunities

God has been talking to my heart over the last 6 weeks about this word...opportunities.  We as parents want/wish to give our children every opportunity we can to help them to be a better person.  We introduce them to different sports, different people, different activities, and different foods.  We do this to make sure they are given every opportunity to better themselves or to be anything they want to be.
Growing up I was given great opportunities that my parents worked very hard to give us.  We then become adults and choose to walk away with the opportunities we want.  I can't begin to name all of the opportunities my parents gave me, but I would like to list 3 main ones.  First, was education.  My parents knew that education was very important.  They would find the best public school in a city and then find the closest house for sale.  Education mattered.  Second, speech.  My mother would constantly look me in the face to correct my speech.  Third, people.  I was not raised to belittle another race nor look down on anyone, no matter their status.
I remember this lesson of "opportunities" was ingrained into me through a situation I found myself in when we lived in Bibb City (a poorer section of our town) in my twenties.  Chance and I were living in a staff house at a local homeless shelter.  I was given the opportunity to help a young girl in her twenties just like me, with small children, just like me.  The only difference between the two of us were the opportunities given to each of us growing up.  Her speech was different and her education was different.  I saw us as no different other than the fact that I had been given different opportunities.  This reminded me of the movie "My Fair Lady" in which the professor takes a lady away from the poor part of town, educates her and perfects her speech and tries to pass her off as royalty.  These are opportunities.
In America, "the land of opportunity" the opportunities are vast.  Being here in Bulgaria, I saw this desire to be more like America in dress, slogans, and pop culture, but I believe the desire to be like America, comes more in the opportunities available.  In America you are told you can be anything you want when you grow up.  You can take advantage (if you work hard enough) of every opportunity America gives you.  Many choose to take advantage, but many don't.
We, here on the mission field, want to give opportunities to those wanting to choose them.  An opportunity to move from the kingdom of darkness and into God's glorious loving kingdom, an opportunity to learn God's word and become a disciple and live in freedom and victory, an opportunity to learn English so that more opportunities are given to them, and an opportunity to change the world.