Charlie Chaplin, a famous actor and filmmaker, entered a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest in Cleveland, Ohio—figuring he was a shoe-in and would give everyone a good laugh. He came in twentieth.
I’ve thought about this story a lot. If we let the world judge who we are, they will get it wrong.
When Moses talked to God on the mountain, He said three things.
1. I am God.
2. You are my son.
3. I have a work for you.
But then, right after, Satan came to tempt Moses. His first four words? “Moses, son of man”.
Satan uses the same tactic on Jesus in Matthew 4, starting his temptations with the phrase “IF thou be the son of God..”
If Satan attacked worth first for Moses and Christ, you better bet he is trying it on us.
And while what Moses says after his time with God is absolutely true—“Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing,” (Moses 1:10), Satan tries to play off of that thought with ideas that are not true.
Maybe you weren’t cut out to be a mom.
You aren’t worthy of love.
You aren’t a child of God.
You aren’t qualified for that calling.
Satan attacks worth first. Because if we doubt it, we are crippled. And when we understand it, we can do anything.
“This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God.” (Elder Uchtdorf)
This poem by Lao-Tzu illustrates this beautifully:
“Thirty spokes share the hub of a wheel;
yet it is its center that makes it useful.
You can fashion clay into a vessel;
yet, it is where there is nothing that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows from the walls of a house;
but the ultimate use of the house
will depend on that part where nothing exists.
Therefore, something is shaped into what is;
but its usefulness comes from where there is nothing.”
Yes, we are nothing compared to God—but maybe its in that space that God has room to do His work.
Don’t let Satan or the world be the judge of who you are—they will get it wrong.
You are a child of God.
He knows your name.
He has a work for you.
And He loves you.
come follow me daily 