BEYOND LABELS

By Noel Omukubi

Have you ever found yourself labelled? Called names that bring out a negative image of who you are? Have you ever labelled someone? How did that feel? We all label others whether we want to admit it or not. The real question you need to ask yourself is:  What are the labels that I give to others that I need to be aware of in my own life? Many times we overlook and bypass people who have a lot of potential just because we have labelled them as losers or non-achievers. Thank God that he often chooses the ones that we tend to overlook.

The bible also brings out this concept of labeling others very clearly. David had a label on him. To his father, he was almost a non-entity. When Samuel was sent by God to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as the next King of Israel, David was not paraded before the Prophet Samuel as one of the eligible candidates. In fact, Samuel had to ask Jesse, David’s father if he had any other sons since God had rejected all the able bodied good looking young men who were David’s older brothers that had been paraded before him. David according to his father was only good enough for tending sheep. Samuel thought that he found the next king based on the physical look but God had other plans. Good chose to look at the heart and David’s heart was in the right place, it was inclined towards God. God looks at the heart. If the Prophet Samuel operated in carnality, he definitely would not have chosen David since the label on him was that of a nobody.

We do the same thing even in ministry, don’t we? This one sings better, prays better (read louder) so we assume they deserve a position that they truly do not.  May God continually remind us to see others as God sees them – at their heart. Because it would be a true tragedy to skip over the ‘Davids’ in our midst because we are looking and labelling on our own. No one person can be summed up with a simple category, yet we attempt to define others and ourselves in these simplistic and one dimensional labels every single day.

Child of God, you need to remember that God sees so much more than the things that the world is choosing to define you by. God also sees those things in you that others are simply blind to because of the ways that they have chosen to label you. God does see the richness of each and every person and He has such amazing things planned for every person if they simply allow Him to be the one who defines who they are in Him. God wants to give us new labels that He gives from seeing who we really are.