It certainly seems like knowing yourself—your motives, thoughts and your feelings—should be second nature, a given.

But mostly it isn’t. You find it difficult to REALLY know what’s going on inside you, and instead you gauge your feelings on your perception of other people’s feelings. In addition, you are aware that there are tapes playing inside your mind and heart; tapes that tell stories of painful and difficult pieces of your childhood.

These two challenges combine with other issues you have to make inhabiting your own heart and feelings a challenge for you. It’s easier for you to REACT to others than to name and own your own opinions and state of mind/heart.

But it does not need to be this way.

God has given you a voice, and a heart, and emotions and feelings.

You matter: your particular perspective, wants and desires, and even hurts are unique to you, and were given to the world by God in order to bring about His Kingdom in you and in the world.

It is difficult to hear the voice of your own heart, but it IS possible. It just requires silencing the noise—of the external world, of your own life—and learning to listen to God as He speaks quietly in and through your own soul.

Learn the way, and walk in it, and learn to know yourself.