"Don't Let the Fowls Eat Your Inheritance!"

What a title for a post; “don’t let the fowls eat your inheritance!” Please stay with me while I make my case, and perhaps you will be energized to take heed to those words in your own life.

Let me begin by sharing a few quotes I recently heard women say in a discussion group.

• I'm sick and tired of feeling unworthy, that I'm a failure, un-loveable, dumb, fat, ugly.
• I have always struggled with low self-worth. Just about the time I begin to "lift my head", something or someone comes along to remind me that all my self-doubt is true! I've been a Christian for over 20 years and I am ashamed of the way I feel about myself. I just can't seem to make that leap to “because HE says I'm worthy, I AM!!”
• I don’t feel I deserve to be happy.

How well I know what these women are saying. I played that same scenario out in my mind for years until I came face-to-face with myself one cold, rainy night alone in my bedroom.

It happened like this:

I gazed into the mirror on the wall and uttered the words: “I don’t like you.” As I continued to stare at the mirror, I admitted for the first time in my life, “I have no idea who I am.”

“Self-Esteem, or Self-Worth,” as it is sometimes called, can be defined as how you feel about yourself, the opinion you have of yourself, or how much value you place on yourself.  To put it mildly, mine was at an all-time-low that night and I was at my breaking point.  But something clicked inside of me, and I knew that if I were to be a mother to my two little girls, I’d better find my way out of this maze.

And thus, over the next few months, I traveled back down a muddy road that I had traveled for years.  As I retraced my tracks along that road, I viewed people whom I had allowed to mold and shape me into their image. 

I even discovered that I had been a victim of my own low-key personality.  Being a “don’t rock the boat kind of person,” I had avoided conflict at all extremes. In doing so, I became a yo-yo on a string, bobbling up and down, trying to please everyone around me just to keep a little peace and harmony. 

As my journey continued, the muddy road I had traveled for so many years suddenly became a clear path.  I could feel the mud being loosened from my life, and I took possession of my inheritance Jesus had given me on The Cross.

What was that inheritance? The worth that He says I am by His ultimate sacrifice. It was on The Cross that He bought the whole world just to get a piece of the treasure - -you and I. Obviously, He considered every single person on earth worth dying for.

And now, how can we make that a reality in our life? Sometimes, we just have to drive away the fowls that are eating up the inheritance God gave us just like Abraham had to do.

To refresh your memory, God made a covenant with Abraham that He would give him a son, and sealed it with a blood covenant. At that time, of course, it was the blood of animals.

As the blood covenant lay on the ground, the fowls came down upon the carcases to eat the blood covenant, and Abram had to drive them away. (Genesis 14:11)

The moral of the story is:

Don’t let the fowls of a poor self-esteem eat your inheritance.

Drive them away, and become all God created you to be.

After all, He considered you worth dying for.