Madi Prewett Troutt

And what I talk about in my book is, you know, there was a person who was trying to steal our money, but in the same way, we have a very real enemy who's trying to steal our identity.

And he wants to steal, kill and destroy our intimacy with Jesus, our purpose in this life and our identity in Christ.

And he will use whatever it takes and whatever he's got to do to try and get to us to make us question who we are and how we were created and why we were created the way we were created.

And to start whispering lies again through cultural lies, or maybe it's things that have happened to us that create an insecurity or a confusion.

And I think about, you know, my own life.

And there's so many moments where I've questioned my identity or I've looked to the things of this world.

to try and tell me who I am.

And I continually come up confused or insecure or empty.

And it's when I've realized that only in the one who created me and putting my hope and identity in him will I know who I truly am.

Because when we know whose we are, then we'll know who we are.

And when I realized that, it changed everything.

I was no longer walking into rooms or showing up in relationships looking for another person to tell me who I am.

But I instead now get to walk into rooms and walk into relationships and have conversations and

in life, knowing who I am, looking for ways to encourage people.

Well, we go back to the beginning of scripture in the chapter of Genesis or in the book of Genesis, even in chapter one, two, three, you see that we were created in the image of God.

And when it says in scripture that we were created in the image of God, if we want to know who we are, we have to go and see who is he, who is God.

If we were created in his image, then who is he?

And as we study in scripture and we see who God is and we see that he is light and that he is love and that he is beauty and that he is power and that he is all these beautiful things.

And we were made in his image to reflect him to this world, to reflect his glory and his goodness and his love to the world around us.

We realize, okay, if we're made in his image, then I'm called to just, I'm called to look like him.