Do you see yourself how God sees you?

Not sure how to answer that? Start here: How do you respond when offered a compliment? Do you receive the kind words and say, “Thank you,” or do you feel uncomfortable, brush it off, diminish it, or change the subject?

If it’s any of the latter options, you are not the only one! And we’re going to help you get past it here today.

IF YOU STRUGGLE TO SEE YOURSELF HOW GOD SEES YOU, THIS IS THE EPISODE FOR YOU!

This episode is about learning to see yourself as God sees you, in the fullness of His love, delight, and care. (It’s not really about compliments, but how we respond to praise can be a symptom that our view of self is broken.)

We must break free from the lies that distort our sense of worth (see episode #325) and learn how to root our identity in Christ. Because big dreams built on the shaky ground of lies or confusion regarding our value and worth will soon crumble.

By the end of this episode, you’ll have tools to begin embracing your identity as God’s beloved and reject the temptation of finding your value and worth in performance, perfection, or the approval of others.

Come on back every week this month as we explore the theme of knowing your value and worth as a woman of God.

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New to the Devoted Dreamers Podcast?

START HERE → with my free guide: 17 Quick-Win Actions to Get Your Dream Moving Forward. It’ll help you build some momentum to keep taking steps toward your dream and help you discern where to go from there.

Enjoy This Episode?

Here are some additional episodes you might enjoy:

Ep 110: You Have Great Value and Worth | Apple | Spotify

Ep 107: Because You Are a Daughter of the Most High King | Apple | Spotify

Ep 126: How to Refocus Your Identity on Christ | Apple | Spotify

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Scripture:

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
~ Ephesians 1:4 (NIV)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with
the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding…
~ Ephesians 1:7-8 (NIV)

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of
your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
~ Ephesians 1:13 (NIV)

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,
so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
~ Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
~ Romans 8:1 (ESV)

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,
that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
~ 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

The Parable of the Prodigal Son (in part)
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to
spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him:
Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called
your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him;
he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his
finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
~ Luke 15:17-24 (NIV)

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The unedited transcript for this episode of The Devoted Dreamers Podcast follows:

I’m your host, Merritt Onsa, a Christian life coach. I’m kind of like the Joanna Gaines for women of faith who have big dreams about how God might reorder the second half of your life so you can use your gifts and life experiences to usher in beauty, redemption, healing and service to others. It’s not a redesign of your home that we’re working on. It’s a brand-new way to live—in freedom, free from fear, free from second guessing yourself all the time, and free from the lies that the enemy has used to keep you quiet and playing small in the past. Isn’t it about time more of us who believe in Christ started living that way?

I’m on a mission to engage 10,000 women worldwide to start taking intentional and purposeful steps that will bring their God-shaped dreams to life. If you believe in Jesus and you see his work in your life and you’re aware that you’ve been given gifts, talents and a life story that could serve and benefit others, maybe you’re among those 10,000. I hope that you are, because you’re here listening to a podcast about dreams.

Maybe you’re looking for a chance to see if your dream has legs. You want to try it on for size and figure out if it’s possible. You want to be inspired and encouraged that there’s hope for what you’ve been dreaming all these years. Maybe you’ve been too fearful in the past, or someone dashed your dreams with a comment that hit too close to home, or you just haven’t had time to figure out how to proceed.

Well, my friend, this is your time. This is your space. If you have big ideas for how God could use the gifts he’s given you and the years of your life that remain, and you have a dream that would serve others, let’s figure out how to turn that heartfelt hidden dream into real, actionable plans with impact for God’s kingdom work in the world.

Welcome to episode 326 of the Devoted Dreamers Podcast. Today I’m going to be talking all about finding our value and worth in Christ. It’s perfectly aligned with this month’s theme about how you have great value and worth because of who you belong to, because of whose you are. And I selected this topic because what we believe about ourselves so deeply impacts what we think about our dreams, what we are able to do towards those dreams, if we… Well, I’ll get into that in a minute…

But first, what’s the last compliment you remember receiving? And how did you respond? So think for a minute. When was the last time somebody complimented you about something about you? Or maybe another way to think about this is: how do you respond when praise comes your way? Are you more likely to push back on it or deny it or deflect it? Are you able to receive it with gratitude and thanks and not too much energy put into what somebody just said to you?

So some examples that came to mind as I was thinking about this, where a friend might see you at church and say, “oh, you look beautiful today.” And either out loud or to yourself, you might say, well, yeah, I shampooed. I shampooed my hair today, you know, so not really receiving it, kind of deflecting it.

Another might be, this one is never towards me, but “Your home looks so tidy.” And the thought probably, and potentially the words that come out of your mouth, “you should see the guest room,” like where I stuffed everything that I was trying to hide from people who come over, or the compliment: “You always seem so put together,” and in your mind thinking: “Yeah, you should have seen me yelling at the kids this morning.” And here’s another one. “You’re a really good writer” or whatever it is, artist, speaker. And the thought might be that comes up, “I’m not that good. It’s not like I’m published anywhere” or that I get invited to speak or… the list goes on.

I wanted to bring this up today because I think this is something that we as women struggle with, that the compliments come and we brush them off, we put them down, we try to diminish them sometimes because we’re just uncomfortable. We don’t really know how to respond. But is there something deeper going on? Why is it so hard to see the good in ourselves that others see? Why can we not just say thank you and receive it? Sometimes I think it’s because we don’t want to appear prideful. We don’t want to, you know, maybe even not want to be the focus of attention or somebody’s notice. And sometimes I think that the challenge is that we know ourselves so well. We know our struggles, our sins, our mistakes, our hurts. We have the whole gamut, whereas somebody else might be seeing just a snippet. And so there’s this seed of doubt sown that like, well, if you really knew me, you would never say something like that. I think it’s this, like, how could this compliment be true alongside the struggle that I feel in my life? And so we downplay the compliment or we feel a little uncomfortable, we quickly change the subject to move the focus onto something else or someone else. Is it just me? Anybody else out there feel this?

Have we ever stopped to ask why? That’s what I want to talk about today and get deeper into our value and worth in Christ. Last week we talked about recognizing the lies that we believe about our self-worth. And if you want to even go further in this conversation, I have another episode, it’s episode #110 called You Have Great Value and Worth. So if you want to continue the conversation after this one, I’ll put the link in the show notes and you can go check that one out as well.

So I think the challenge with compliments and the reason I bring that up is because it’s actually a symptom. It’s a symptom, I think, of a deeper struggle that we, a lot of times we, as women, maybe men, struggle with this too, but we have unknowingly, not on purpose by any means, we’ve bought into lies about our worth. So if you haven’t heard last week’s episode about recognizing the lies that we believe about our worth, go back and listen to that one.

But let’s dig a little deeper on this one. I think it is easier for us to be more concerned and about what human people think of us than it is to truly grasp what God thinks of us. Yeah, this is a legit challenge, right? Because the people, they’re right in front of us. We encounter humans every day if we leave our homes or if we live with other people. And some of those encounters are lighter and more joyful, some of those encounters are more weighty. But we’re the ones interacting with the humans on the day-to-day basis.

We may also be interacting with our Father in heaven on a day-to-day basis. But he’s kind of out there or up there or you know, my sweet six-year-old daughter is like, “But I can’t see him.”

And I think that’s the struggle right that there is a bit more intentionality required to see yourself the way God sees you.

And if we struggle to accept or see the good that others see when they’re right in front of us, how much more will we struggle to believe what God says about us is true? And I don’t always share very recent examples, but I have a really recent example of this struggle in my own life. So I’ve been leading the liturgy component of our Sunday services at church once a month. This involves doing the welcome, the announcements, leading the passing of the peace, and the scripture reading at the beginning, like, right before the sermon. And I feel even a little bit strange bringing this up, because this sneaky little thought popped into my head as I was writing down, like, oh, what could I say about this? That I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging. I kind of want to share this with you and sound like I’m trying to make much of myself. So there’s that little sneaky voice in the background even as I’m sharing this story.

But most recently, when I led liturgy, a friend said to me after the service, this was just like a week ago. She said, I really love it when you’re up there. I just really love seeing you up on the stage. It was sweet, such a sweet compliment. It was sincere. It was heartfelt. She was so warm as she said it to me.

But what floated to the surface in my mind were all the things that felt a little bit off. I was so sweaty that day. It was hot in the church. I was sitting close to the big lights, and hello, menopause. I was so sweaty. And another piece of this in releasing the body to go do passing the peace. We have, like a four-minute passing of the peace, and everybody goes and leaves their seats, and they go talk to, you know, somebody who’s visiting. It’s just like this very joyful, kind of loud experience.

And I’m up there with the microphone, like, is this on? Hello? You know, I feel so awkward having to interrupt these beautiful conversations that are happening. So, you know, I’m sure that’s part of the sweatiness. Uh, then I am thinking, like, as soon as I hop down from the stage, like, Did it come across okay? I know I stumbled over my words a little bit when I was reading in Genesis, or I used a little bit of humor in the announcements. Was that okay? Is that a little bit off for the formalness of a church service? And what did the pastors think? Like, did I miss something? Did I say something wrong? It’s just all these thoughts in my head when I step down. It’s like the first 15 minutes of the sermon, I can hardly pay attention because I’m trying to get outside of myself and these thoughts that are coming. And I mean, all of that disputing coming up again as my sweet friend is giving me this compliment about feeling seen and comforted by seeing someone she knows stand up on the stage. And all I could think later was like, forgive me, Jesus, for making it all about me. It is not about me.

And in a similar situation, I had this, like, nervous sense. This was a couple months ago. Afterwards, I’ve probably only been doing this for about six months, so it’s still kind of new for me. But I walked up to the pastor after and I was like, so how did it go? Like, how did I do? And he said, “I got no notes, I got no notes for you.” And for a minute I was like, wait, come on, I need a little bit of feedback. But then later it was like, oh, what freedom. That I expected him to have something that he would tell me that I didn’t do well, because in my mind, I had that list of things. I could name so many, but not a single correction. And it was beautiful. I just feel like he witnessed Christ to me in that moment. And yes, I realize that my drive towards perfectionism runs deep, and this is something I continue to take to the Lord.

But I’m curious as I tell that story, what is it for you? What pushes back against your value and worth, the way that you exist and present yourself in the world? What is it that’s pushing back against the richness of being a daughter of the King? Is it, like me, this, like, longing to be perfect in order to be acceptable, to ever make a mistake? Is it self-doubt? A little bit of like, well, I don’t have what it takes. I could never do something like pursue this dream that God’s put on my heart. Is it wanting approval? Seeking external validation from also flawed humans?

Those things are, like, just below the surface, I think. But the root and why we’re talking about this today, it’s deeper than any of those things. The root is that we do not truly understand how God sees us, our value and worth in his eyes. And I cannot help but think about the parable of the prodigal son as Jesus tells it in Luke 15:11–32. I’m sure that you’ve read it or at least heard the story. The younger son, you know, asks his father for his share of the inheritance. And he goes off into wild living and disregard for his family, his father, his father’s provision.

He wastes it all. I don’t know over how much time it takes for him to go through his inheritance. But when it all falls apart, he knows he’s not worthy to return as a son. He acknowledges that—I’ll put the scripture in the show notes—but he decides he’s going to crawl back, despite his shame, and ask his father to live as a servant. But what does the father do, unbeknownst to the son? What does the father do all that time that the son is gone? He waits. He waits.

He looks out to the road, probably every day. Is he there? Is he? Is he home? Is he coming back? He looks for him. He longs for him. And he waits for him. And what does the father do when the son returns? He runs to him, which I’ve heard it would be totally inappropriate in the culture of that day. He runs to him and then celebrates him. “Get the fattened calf. We’re going to have a party. My son has returned.”

And in contrast, the older son. There’s two sons. The older son who stayed home and was faithful and did all the right things. He is livid at the concept of this celebration and refuses to join in. For him, worthiness is earned. And now the scandalous brother returns and the generous love of the father is directed at his brother. It upsets the older son’s economics of needing to earn love from his father by being the good son.

Now there are at least two sides to this struggle with self-worth. We either underestimate or under evaluate who we are in God’s eyes, or we overestimate or overvalue our ability to earn God’s love. It’s this mutual struggle that could go one of both ways. Or maybe you have a little bit of older son and younger son in you. But no matter what we’ve done, pre-salvation or post salvation, our God is a God who waits for us to return, to come back to Him. And he celebrates every time that we do because we are his beloved.

And I’ll say it again, we can know those words. That I am God’s beloved, that I am a daughter of the King, that my value and worth come from my identity in Christ. But we do not truly understand our value in God’s eyes. And if we did, we would neither fish for compliments from others, nor would we feel compelled to change the subject when the compliments come. We would neither think too highly of ourselves, nor too little of ourselves. We wouldn’t give a moment’s thought to the voice that says, I’m not enough or I don’t have what it takes.

Isn’t that how you want to live? To not give a moment’s thought to those things, to not think too highly or too little of yourself? But how? How do we do it? This is the culmination of what I wanted to present to you here today. It is by rooting ourselves in the love of Christ and our value and worth in Him. So last week I gave you three steps to recognize any lies you might be believing about yourself. And I have three steps again for you today.

Step one, it’s very similar. This is all gonna sound very familiar. Step one is to notice, to pay attention to your gut reaction, specifically, the next time somebody gives you a compliment. I mention this because I think it’s just kind of the easiest way that we can detect that there’s something going on with our value and worth. So is it that you feel discomfort? Do you deflect it? Are you even able to say thank you? Is it a sincere thank you? Do you elevate the compliment? Do you get a little proud of yourself because you got complimented or because you did a good job? Do you make it about you and how great you are? Either side of that, that you diminish it, or you diminish the compliment, or you make yourself great because of the compliment. These are both signs of a struggle with self-worth. It’s when we’re blown by the winds of the opinions of others instead of secure and rested in the rock, in our Lord.

Okay, so the step one was to notice. Step two is truth. Just like last week, whether your self-worth is elevated or diminished by your own self, your thoughts, or the things that others say, the antidote to that, the way to live differently is, is to live in the truth.

So I want you to practice moving away from getting your significance from others and/or affirming, like what you believe about yourself, any lies that you might be believing about yourself and your value and your worth. And I want you to dwell in the Scriptures. So that’s what I mean by step two is the truth. And I love Ephesians 1. If you go nowhere else, if you just hang out in Ephesians 1, it talks about, you are chosen in him before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in his sight. Chosen to be holy and blameless. Verse 7-8, it says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” You’ve been forgiven. You’ve been redeemed by God’s grace, poured over you like a waterfall. And in verse 13, “You were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” So dwell in the Scriptures. Find some truth to remind yourself of who you are in him.

And then step three is to receive grace. God sees you as his beloved. Whether or not you receive that, you are covered by the blood of Jesus. You are forgiven and redeemed. You are His. There is nothing to earn. There is nothing to get right or to do perfectly. There is nothing you can do for these things to be true.

So when it comes to receiving a compliment, simply practice saying thank you. Maybe smile, maybe relish in that in a moment. And remember in your heart. You don’t have to say this out loud, but you could but, “I am God’s beloved. I don’t have to prove anything. I don’t have to earn anything. I am valuable because he says I am and because he is my Father.” The goal here of this episode and the previous is to see yourself as God sees you.

So what you’re gonna do this week following listening to this episode, do it right after, if you can. We’re about to wrap up here, but I want you to pick a verse to memorize and I want you to write it down daily. There is something about not, not typing. I want you to write it with your hand, with a pencil or a pen, and then I want you to carry it with you wherever you go. It could be an Ephesians 1 verse. It could be Ephesians 2:10. You are his masterpiece. Romans 8:1 or 1 Peter 2:9. Those are some others to consider. I’ll put those in the show notes where you can find them.

So dwell in the truth. That’s that truth. Piece of step two. And then I love this practice. If you’ve ever heard of Immanuel journaling, which helps you slow down and become aware of God’s compassionate presence in your life. I love doing this when somebody else facilitates it, but you can facilitate it for yourself. All you would have to do is just google Immanuel Journaling and look for questions and the process of how you go about it. Or you could just simply spend time in prayer, asking God to reveal his heart for you, to help you see yourself as beautiful and worthy and loved and beloved and created for a purpose. And then write down anything he shows you during your time together.

This is such an important topic. I want to pray over you and then I’ll share a little bit more about what’s coming on this topic later this month.

Father in heaven, we do struggle to know our value and worth in you. And forgive us for how we either make much of ourselves or make little of ourselves because you see us as daughters of the King. God, I pray for each woman who is hearing my voice in this moment that she would know her immense value and worth, that Jesus went to the cross for her. If only it was just her, he would have still gone.

Thank you so much that there is an endless supply of truth that we can dig into and learn from and begin to take hold of our true value and worth. Because of who you are, because of whose we are, because of who you say we are.

I pray that you would continue to knit into each woman who’s hearing my voice a deeper, more full understanding of your love for her. Not because of anything she’s done or avoided doing, but because you are God and you are a good father. Would you nurture that belief in us today? In Jesus name, Amen.

Okay, so next week I have part one of a two-part episode with Kirsten D. Samuel.

She’s a coach for women seeking recovery after marriage betrayal. So we are going to talk a little bit more about this value and worth concept and how we see ourselves the way God sees us, not based on anything we’ve done or experienced or loss or grief in our lives.

She’s going to share how God took her messy failures and her broken dreams to show his greatness, his forgiveness and his grace in her life. And then how he’s used his redemptive story worked out in her life so that she could help other women discover their significance, hope and authentic future. If your dream was birthed out of pain, loss or betrayal, you are going to love hearing from Kirsten.

If you have a God shaped dream. If you’ve been hanging out here a while, or maybe this is your first episode of the Devoted Dreamers podcast, I want to issue an invitation to you. If you are ready for more than sitting on the sidelines, ready for more than just listening to podcast episodes. If you’re ready to take some action and begin some conversations about your God shaped dreams, I want you to come to my free Mastermind call on February 20th inside my Dream Believers community. You can RSVP to that at https://merrittonsa.com/mastermind. That’s m e r r i t t o n s a.com/mastermind.

My friends, tune in every week. Like I said, this is going to be a weekly show this year. Invite your friends. Share this episode and mostly trust God’s guidance for the dream that he has given you.

Finally, Daughter of the King, you were made for a beautiful purpose. Your identity and security rest in him, as does your dream, because the Lord is good and his ways are always good. No weapon formed against you will prosper because you belong to Him.

Until next week, stay faithful, keep dreaming. And remember, trusting God with your next step doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be scary. It means taking the step anyway. That’s what faith is.

You are welcome here among women braving those scary steps in faith, knowing our dreams matter because they are His.

Until next time, I’m Merritt Onsa, your dream coach and sister in Christ walking by faith with you in the dream.

Have a great week.