Both of my children have told me this today and my husband and a friend have all told me this week that, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.”  I sit here and pause and ponder on that. Is it really?

It gets old and disheartening when someone copies you constantly. Maybe as a young teen when you are trying to find yourself it is more in line to mimic or copy someone else but at some point you have to find who you are and what your purpose is on this earth. You will never find what you are searching for by walking and comparing yourself with others. As Pastor Andy Stanley says, ” There is no win in comparison .” As he changed it slightly, “Compar-a-SIN.”

I would like to remind all of us of some beautiful thought provoking quotes.

1. YOU are born an original, don’t live like a copy. Find your voice. Embrace your uniqueness.

2. BE YOURSELF- An original is always worth more than a copy.

3. You were born an original, don’t die a copy.

4. Be your own kind of beautiful.

5.  Be Fearlessly Authentic.

I love this last one, Fearlessly Authentic. My motto for the year, “LiveFearless2015.”  God made us in His image but he also made us unique. We all have a specific calling that only we were made to do. His purpose for us  and His way for us. We are all different parts of the same body of Christ and each part is vital.

When you continue to copy someone else, or try to steal their ways that make them unique or their plans and dreams, you are saying, You’re afraid that there’s nothing great inside of you, nothing unique about you that anyone would  like or treasure. This is a lie from the enemy.  God does not make any junk.  The truth is,  you have special gifts  inside of you hand-tailored by God for you to bring to the table that no one else brings. You’re the only one whose got that “it” from God. ~

I read this today…  Following God is like copying the work of a master artist: only God gives each of us different colors and medias to copy it with. No one has all the right materials and all the right abilities. Some of us may have to paint ours entirely in blue, some of us may not have a pencil to get the general shape in place. But sometimes we can share our materials to help others complete their picture.

When we surrender our lives to Christ, we are surrendering our ways to line up with his ways. But God, still uses the unique blueprint he designed from the beginning , the unique gifts he gave only you to fulfill His purpose and His plan for your life as well as the body of Christ. Share your gifts, quit trying to share gifts that were not yours to share.

We should all learn from our competitors but never copy. In business, we need to find something that sets us apart from our competition. Uniquely different but oh so marketable. In our walk, our life lived in front of others, we should be focusing on our walk with the Lord, not someone else’s walk. At the end of our life when we stand before our Almighty God, we will be answering for what we did with the gifts and abilities he gave us NOT others.  There is no win in comparison. It is a trap. It is an outwards characteristic of an inward heart problem. We have to get to the root. When we compare and copy constantly of others we are focusing on those around us instead of focusing on our glorious savior.

Be Fearless. Be Fearlessly You ~ Imitation is not flattery it really is a lack of creativity. Our God that we serve makes no mistakes. He is the creative master painter. No two sunrises or sunsets are ever the same. The colors are vivid, each with its own shades, own shape and it is beautiful breathtaking. No two handprints are the same. No two fingerprints are the same. God made us all different for a reason. To not embrace ourselves is to not embrace the creation of the Creator.

He knew us in our Mothers  womb.  He designed each one of us to be wonderfully, fearfully and beautifully made.  As the song Wonderfully Made by Sarah Harts says,” If we could just see just for one day, the way that he sees us.”  It would truly change everything.

Jesus loves me…. Oh how he loves me ~  Jesus loves me the Bible tells me so. Embrace this truth and this song that we learned as a child. It truly gives us the freedom to be fearlessly authentic.

In His Love and Mine,

Darla