You are a beautiful story. Take time to read it.

​In his sermon last Sunday, Steven Furtick said, "the process of discipleship is not God changing you into something else, it's him revealing who you've been all along."

While I was running yesterday afternoon, I found myself wondering - what if life isn't as much about changing as it is about discovering. What if this pursuit I'm on to become who I'm made to be is standing in the way of me discovrering the beauty in who I already am.

It's funny, I say it about my boys all the time. I say I have no picture at all of who I want them to become - because I truly don't - I just want them to discover the gifts God's planted inside them. I think me pushing them toward something that's in my mind stands in the way of them discovering something that might already be in theirs.

The process of me discipling my kids isn't me pointing them toward something OUT there, it's me helping to bring out of them what God's already put IN there.

I had this conversation with a friend yesterday about peace. I asked, have you ever felt peace?

I asked it because I had.

I remember where I was. I remember the trail. In that moment I was overwhelmed by this feeling that I was free to be me. Free to think and say and be all things that were truly me. Things I think I'd thought I had to block if I was ever going to be who I thought I was supposed to be.

I remember saying - in that freedom - this is peace.

Maybe that is what peace is. Finally discovering who we have been all along - because God didn't create us for turmoil.

Maybe turmoil comes in chasing down this person we think we're supposed to be at the expense of resting in the person we already are.

Maybe turmoil comes when it's impossible to rest in who we already are because we dislike that person. We dislike that person so much so that we can't give up on the idea we are surely supposed to be someone else.

Maybe we get too busy writing the story of the world we think we're supposed to see instead of sitting down and writing the story of the world that lives in us.

The world out there - it pressures you to write a story about the world. It pressures you to believe the world is the leading role in that story; you are just a supporting actor or actress. The world constantly challenges you to re-write your character description in a way that makes you deserving of a role in the story.

Sometimes we simply need to quit re-writing.

The story is you. You are already in a leading role. The secret is removing the world from your story long enough to get to know the beautiful character you already are.

You don't need to re-write your character description. You just need to discover the description that was written long ago.

You are a beautiful story. Take time to read it.