Picture this:
You are going about your day, minding your own business, just doing what you need to do. You get up, fix yourself your morning beverage of choice, look at your daily planner and start on your day. Just another ordinary day with ordinary stuff to do. But then, your life gets interrupted. An angel appears and tells you that God is with you, that there is so much more to your life that what you can see now. He says that in fact, you are chosen, mighty and brave, that it’s about time you started doing all the amazing things you need to do.
You quickly correct the angel, telling him that he has landed in the wrong place. You remind him that you are from an unknown family with zero connections and no known exceptional talents. Although you still believe in God, it has been a while since you had a deep and meaningful connection with him. In fact, if you were to be brutally honest, a part of you feels like God has forgotten you. Things are so bad that you are living off whatever little the family has left, with no job in your foreseeable future. Surely he must have confused you with someone else. There is simply no way you are that person he says you are.

But no, the angel insists. He has been commissioned to you. He calls you by your full name and tells you the strength is in you to not only turn your circumstances around, but to be a beacon of light and hope to others, a light of salvation to your community.
By now you are convinced there might have been something odd in your morning beverage because this must be a hallucination. Nevertheless, you decide to play along. It is the most interesting thing that has happened in your day so far. You ask the angel for a sign and he tells you to give him the bread and tin of soup you were planning to have for lunch. Skeptically, you hand them over, and with a snap of his fingers, they burn up without leaving a mark on your countertop.
And with that, the penny drops.
You realize indeed he was an angel. Something in you begins to be revived. A quiet confidence starts to come forth. An inner realization starts to dawn, like someone has drawn the curtains to reveal to you who you really are, and what your purpose is. Step by step, you start to lean into your destiny to change your corner of the world.
Sounds like a scene from a movie, right? This actually happened. A more eloquent version of the story can be found in the Bible, in Judges 6. It was a tough time for the Israelites, they were under attack and oppressed by the Midianites. When the Israelites cried out to God, he sent an angel to Gideon, a warrior who was threshing wheat in a winepress. Gideon was from the smallest tribe in Israel, and his family was the least in that tribe. Talk about being insignificant. Yet God chose him to save the Israelites.
The thing that strikes me the most about this story is that the angel addressed Gideon as God saw him, as a mighty warrior:
When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
Judges 6:12
The angel did not say, “The Lord is with you, man currently threshing wheat.” The address was a clear testimony of who Gideon was in God eyes. This is how God sees us. He looks past our current circumstances, inadequacies, and even sins. He sees us they way he designed us to function. He has equipped us for our unique functionality by giving us his Holy Spirit whose power enables us to do what we are called to do.
“Greater is he that is in me, than he that is in the world”.
1 John 4:4
Now God may not send a full on angel to remind us who we are but reminders are always present. We can choose to ignore the gentle nudging, but we will always have a sense of longing for what we could be. Fear and busyness can deflect it but in our quiet moments, we will remember. We are more than this present version of ourselves.
God knows the real you. He knows who you are destined to be. You are his greatest masterpiece. Will you let God lead you to where you need to be today? We can be so much more because we can do ALL things through Jesus.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Phillipians 4:13