That time God Called me Wonder Woman…

I used to think it was a bit of a stretch to find God in everything; I wouldn’t dare want to “over-spiritualize” anything. Thankfully, my frontal lobe is finished developing by now and the Lord has been doing a complete overhaul of my belief system anyway over the last few years; so I have changed my mind about all that. I’m allowed to change my mind, because I have more information about who God is now. And it’s all for the best, because I believed some significant lies about who I am in Christ and who God is.

I am so thankful for God’s perspective. Mine tends to be on the Debbie-Downer/pity party side of the spectrum without His miraculous intervention. We actually have a choice to believe that God either is intimately and intricately involved in our lives, or He isn’t. The Bible says He is (something about knowing the number of hairs on my head? Luke 12:6-7). Like that time last year I was having the worst day ever and feeling pretty sorry for myself, and this giant semi-truck drove by with “Jesus” written in big red letters… could that be God personally reminding me that He loves me? Or is it just a coincidence? (I took a picture of it.) 

Sometimes God highlights things to me in pop-culture. I love it! Do you find it hard to see God in our culture today? There certainly is a lot of garbage to sort through, but God is the Father of lights and can reveal Himself in all the darkness. Recently, I encountered God in a very personal and powerful way through the popular D.C. character, Wonder Woman. Weird, right?

For the last few years, God has been telling me how strong and brave I am. In fact, a few years ago I was at a conference at church that is dedicated to spending time being still and practicing hearing God’s voice. I asked Him a simple question “How do you see me, ABBA?” His response to me was “Wonder Woman.” Initially, I disagreed. I was no courageous, strong, brave princess warrior! Because trust me, I had read the comics. Plus I have the anxious thoughts and nervous habits to prove it. Also, wouldn’t it be prideful to say that?

Don’t get me wrong, I would like to be seen as brave and strong! Even when I was younger, I loved when people called me a “daredevil” because I would ride every roller coaster at King’s Island that I was tall enough to ride at age 10. But deep down, I have been the wrong kind of fearful for as long as I can remember. Fear had infiltrated so many areas of my life over the years, to the point that I felt paralyzed in many areas of my life: relationships, career, finances, even extracurricular activities! I wanted freedom so badly from perfectionism and people pleasing but I didn’t know how to make it stop. Thankfully, God continues to do His redemption thing and usher me to Truth.

So back to God calling me Wonder Woman. One super cool thing about God is that He sees us for who we really are, who He created us to be, and our FULL-potential selves! I am getting better at having God’s perspective toward myself and others. It is exciting. So, I decided to do a little research. Because knowledge is power. God brought me to the story of Gideon in Judges 6. Enter Gideon who is afraid and hiding from the Midianites in a wine press when an Angel of the Lord appeared and addressed him as Gibbor Chayil, or “Mighty Man of Valor.” He met the Lord and was given an identity – his TRUE identity. Because of this identity, and the presence of the Lord with him, Gideon goes on to play a huge role in God’s story of redemption for Israel. I love this story because God gives new identity. PLEASE go and read that story! It’s an inspiring story regardless if you are a man or woman!

Upon further research, I came to discover the very same phrase is used for the woman described in Proverbs 31, because women are warriors too! Eshet Chayil, or “Mighty Woman of Valor” is my new God-given identity in Christ, not the people-pleasing, fearful worrier that I have always been. Worrier to Warrior. That’s what God does; gives us new identities. And the truth is, it would be prideful not to agree with God, because I know it had nothing to do with anything that I did. It has everything to do with what Jesus did on the cross that gave me this new identity. God knew exactly where I was at when He called me Wonder Woman. I am on a journey of internalizing my identity in Christ. I had spent years believing lies about myself and lies about God and that kept me paralyzed from fulfilling my kingdom purpose. So I embraced it, and then Hollywood made a movie about it. But more on that next time…

Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”