What If You’ve Been Mislabeling Yourself?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve described myself as a lazy person. I mean, I’m just about always down to relax and take a load off. Manual labor has never been of interest to me, so I pretty much avoid it when and where I can.

Because I’m lazy… right? Or is it possible there’s a deeper explanation for my behavior – one that’s more aligned with God’s original design for me?

A truth I’ve been wrestling with lately is that we tend to mislabel ourselves. This world feeds off of negativity. So unfortunately, it’s easy to absorb that energy and judge ourselves harshly – without ever digging deeper and asking God for his perspective of us.

So in my case, the easiest and most obvious explanation is that I’m lazy. Why else do I love lingering in bed? Or why I prefer being cooked for rather than cooking for myself? And don’t even get me started on how I can’t wait until I’m able to hire a cleaning company.

But when I looked beyond what the natural eye could see and got curious about my behavior, I discovered something different.

I realized I’d been focusing on my behavior instead of my motivation.

The truth is that I am naturally drawn to peace, ease, rest, and comfort. I’m pretty sure the term “soft life” was created for me. I am fueled by slow mornings. Soft blankets. Coloring books. And coziness.

But the enemy loves distortion.

He doesn’t have to remove the good things God placed inside of us.

He simply has to convince us that they’re flaws.

So peace becomes laziness.

Gentleness becomes weakness.

Curiosity becomes overthinking.

Sensitivity becomes “too emotional.” The list goes on.

And hear me out, I’m not at all saying there haven’t been plenty of times where I could have used my time and resources more wisely. There are certainly areas where I can grow in discipline, sacrifice, and perseverance. But understanding that God created me to appreciate ease allows me to see myself more accurately and pursue peace without letting comfort become an idol.

So maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to negatively judge ourselves. And instead, get curious about God’s original intentions for why we are the way we are.

Because I can’t help but wonder how many parts of ourselves we’ve mislabeled simply because we’ve never invited God into the conversation. Maybe what we’ve been calling flaws are places where the enemy has distorted the truth of who we are. Or maybe God wants to reveal something deeper, just like he did for me.

So this week, I want to encourage you to get curious. Bring your habits, your personality, your strengths, and even the parts of yourself you’ve always criticized into your 1:1 time with God. Ask him to show you what he sees.

You might be surprised to discover that the parts of yourself you’ve spent years trying to fix aren’t flaws at all. Maybe they’re qualities God intentionally placed within you that he wants to refine, not remove. And perhaps they’ll play a bigger role in your purpose than you ever imagined.