There is no one just like you, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot become someone else. God designed you to be unique and empowers you to be anything you want to be.
So, if you can be the person God sees in you, anyone that you want to be, why would you want to be someone else?
One Out of Eight Billion!
Think about it, there are almost eight billion people on the planet and God made you so unique that there is no other person just like you, there is no “doppelganger” hiding around the corner. Identical Twins are unique individuals as well. Did you know that even though they come from the same single cell, Identical Twins have different fingerprints? How cool is that? The fingers we use to leave our mark on the world are ours and ours alone! If you are still doing the calculations, that would be ten fingers out of almost eighty billion fingers!
For me, billions of anything are one of those things my simple brain can’t comprehend. Kind of like looking at the Grand Canyon. Even when standing on the rim of the canyon, it looks like a postcard picture to me. Too much grand information to process for my brain. So, what is a billion?
According to Webster, a billion is equal to 1,000 million and a million is equal to 1,000 times 1,000! So, for the math nerds, that means that you are ONE unique person out of … 8 million times 8000 times 1000!
Instead of embracing our God created uniquity, the people of this world seem to go to great lengths to become someone different than the person God created. We see it every day on TV, at the Movies, and in social media, a deep desire to be someone different; skinnier, prettier, more youthful just like those beautiful people, living those perfect lives. Our desire to be someone other than ourselves drives the weight loss industry to over $70 Billion dollars in annual revenues (there’s that Billion number again) and explains why cosmetic surgeons are in the top ten highest paid medical professions in the world. The Cosmetic Surgery and Procedure Markets will generate almost $44 Billion in annual revenue by 2025.
I'm Not Like Everybody Else!
Does changing who we are on the outside change the real us? With 24/7 media and all of us being inundated by social media, we are tempted to make our “on-line” persona resemble those perfect people, and their enviable lives, instead of singing the praises of our unique, God Created Individualism.
Can you name one successful person or group that became successful by being like everyone else? Sure, they must exist. Thinking it through, my memory takes me back to the British music invasion of the sixties and all the Beatle “wannabe’s” that filled the invasion with long haired teen age boys and funny accents. If you weren’t there, can you name just one of the bands? Still today, more than five decades after they recorded their last song together, we still talk about the “Fab Four” and almost every music lover on the planet knows who the Beatles were. Go figure - four skinny kids from the fishing port of Liverpool, armed with long hair, guitars, and an insatiable dream. It was their uniqueness that made them so recognizable. Once someone would stop to look at the four lads from Liverpool and their quirky looks, the strength of their music took over. Nothing learned in books or fashion magazines, they were just unique and extremely talented.
The Beatles were not the exception to the rule. Look at their music hero, Elvis. He was like nothing coming out of Tennessee in the fifties. Long hair, weird clothes, and those gyrating hips. Elvis was radically different from the “Grand Ol’ Opry” stars of the day, like Hank Snow and Porter Wagoner. Do you remember them? Porter discovered Dolly Parton, another unique performer that was told she was too short, her voice was too squeaky, and that her physique was too much like the buxom Mae West. Did you know that Dolly is the fourth most awarded country artist of all time? Her God given uniqueness also delivered her to star level as a triple threat in music, TV and Film. Pretty amazing for that robust little girl from the “holler” with the squeaky voice.
Being Different makes the Difference!
Thankfully for the computer industry, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were corporate “non-conformists” that used their individuality to rock the world of the gray suited computer industry. Then there’s the most successful woman entrepreneur of all time, who had no business experience and was told she was too overweight to be a successful businesswoman. Oprah Winfrey never let her looks or lack of business competence get in her way. Instead, Oprah is a great example of turning perceived weakness into strength.
Let’s not forget the three most impactful leaders in Scripture. There was that eighty-year-old man with a speech impediment, the frail shepherd boy with only a sling shot and of course the so-called illegitimate son of a carpenter from Galilee who Nathanael quipped that nothing good ever came out of Galilee. History is full of unique people setting the world on fire because they were different, not like everybody else.
How about you? What is that perceived weakness that makes you unique, that thing your insecurities use to stop you from your dreams? With all your perceived weaknesses you are still that unique person that God chose and designed before He created the Heavens and Earth. It is your faith in Him that will see you through, not being just like someone else. With your faith in God, He will knock down barriers, move mountains and change the hearts of everyone that stands between you and your dreams. It is that faith in Him that carries us through everything.
“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.
Mark 11:23 NIV
Scripture is clear, when we believe with all our heart, God will move the mountain for us.
You Are Chosen!
"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you."
- John 15:16 NKJV
Embrace your yoUniqueness! - It is God’s gift to you!
Above All else …
Love God FIRST!
Love People ALL WAYS!