Stamp of Approval

I have a thing in my life.  It is this unquenchable need for approval.  It is born out of a fear that I am not good enough and never will be good enough.  I have lived with this fear for a long time and I am finally fed up with having it around.  See, it affects everything.  It effects the way I think, the way I talk, the way I interact with others, and the way I do things.  It is this heavy cloud that I simply have accepted as being a part of who I am......and so I have settled.....allowed it to stay.  And quite frankly, I am over it.  I am just going to be really frank........so if you don't like frankness, stop reading this now.........  It is like a really bad case of hemorrhoids.  Irritating, sometimes painful, and ever so hard to get rid of, unless you put forth specific effort to rid yourself of their peskiness.  When you get fed up enough with them, you finally say, "fine.  I will do what it takes.  It isn't worth living like this." 

And that is where I am at.  And to be honest with you, I am not sure where to start, because I thought I had dealt with this issue already in my life.  But like a lot of issues, you have the head knowledge of it before it becomes heart knowledge.  I think that is what I dealt with before.  It become head knowledge for me, who I was in Christ, completely accepted and loved by Him, approved, good enough.  I know all of that in the area above my neck, but in the area below my neck, it has not quite sunk in yet.  It has not become truth to me.  It was truth for others, but not for me. 

I am ready for the heart knowledge now.  I am ready for it to penetrate deeper than just my cerebral cortex and to begin to penetrate my heart. 

This morning I was in a bit of a struggle again.  My feelings battling the truth that I know in my head and my heart not grabbing onto and fighting and standing firm and secure on the Word of Truth.  I stopped reading my Bible and knelt down in front of my Father and poured it all out to Him.  Everything I felt.  I asked Him to do things for me and then stopped myself, cause I'm not supposed to just ask for things, I am supposed to praise Him too.  Good grief.  Can't even pray right.  So, I told Him that too.  Told Him how I just want to be good enough.  And that is when I saw it coming.  He interrupted me and His hand came flying towards my forehead.  You know the V8 commercials where the person gets hit on the forehead and you hear the voice say, "You should've had your V8 today?"  That's what this reminded me of.  Except, I saw this picture of His hand coming towards me, He hit me in the forehead and said, "approved!"

APPROVED!  I can't say it has completely sunk in yet.  But I know what He is saying to me, "You have been approved!  Now knock it off and get on with life."  And that is my desire.  It is time to stop this, giving into the doubts of who I am in Him, second guessing EVERYTHING and wondering if I am good enough, approved, and acceptable.  I don't want it to affect my life anymore.  But just like those hemorrhoids I mentioned earlier, it is going to take some effort on my part to take every thought captive and put it under the authority of Christ Jesus and to allow the head knowledge to seep down into the depths of my heart until it becomes a deep seeded heart knowledge that CANNOT be shaken.