It’s not a lack of opportunity around me. Rather, it’s a lack of faith within me.

When the world does its level best to devalue me in ways that are nothing short of brutal, all it does is evidence my value. For why would it expend such massive amounts of energy attempting to destroy something that’s not there?

However far I’ve come, it’s probably somewhere less than halfway of where I could be if I simply believed in myself.

I take my cues from the world around me and carefully paint a self-portrait that the world can’t help but accept. However, I would be much wiser to put down all such artistic notions and hold up the portrait of me painted by God simply because that is a picture at which the world can’t help but marvel.

It has nothing to do with who I am as compared to everyone else. It has everything to do with who I am in companionship with God.

What in the world would ever lead to me believe that life is a series of opportunities that are readily available to everyone else but me? What really leads me to believe such an atrocious lie is that I don’t believe in myself sufficiently to engage those opportunities in the first place.