On Mercy’s Freedom Journey, we invite participants to use a tool called What About You?

The What About You? Tool is a way for individuals to consider what they think about themselves and who they believe themselves to be. It starts with a collection of adjectives that individuals are asked to circle if the word rings true for them, ranging from how they look, to things they like or don’t like about themselves.

It’s a powerful tool because it’s not often that we take stock of what we really believe about ourselves. We may find it a lot easier to describe how we want to be seen or how we feel others may view us…

But to honestly reflect on our own thoughts and feelings, however uncomfortable, can be the start of something powerful.

Because once we piece together our self-perception, we can start to understand where those perceptions and beliefs came from. Life experiences, social and cultural contexts, family and peers all contribute to shaping our self-perception. Sometimes this is positive, but sometimes this is negative and can impact how we live our lives.

The tool continues by asking individuals to reflect on how they perceive God. Not who they know him to be, or should believe he is, but their own authentic experience, perceptions and feelings about him.

It is often said that ‘I know God is, therefore I believe he is…whether I feel it or not’. Whilst there is validity to this statement - of course our feelings are changeable and God is truth - it can sometimes lead us to deny the reality of what we actually experience. We bury our God in a mountain of head knowledge, trying not to notice the disparity, or dissonance, between our heart and our head.

But to safely explore this dissonance - for example, ‘I know God is good, but with me he seems cruel and harsh’ or ‘I know God is trustworthy but he let me down when I needed him the most’ is a huge step in building an honest, authentic relationship with God where we acknowledge these feelings out loud.

For some, this can feel like one step too far - a vulnerability that risks losing God altogether. And yet, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth (Psalm 18) as we enter dialogue with God.

One thing that quickly becomes apparent as we work our way through the tool, is that there are often links between perception of self, others and God. For example, our experience growing up was that we were lonely or had few friends. Our perception of Jesus is ‘distant’. The connection can sometimes be clear- that we can have perceptions of God that are based on our human experiences.

For example, when we recognise the feelings connected to an absent father, we may notice that we transfer this to the sense of an absent God. An emotionally absent mother? This may translate for some as a sense of a God who is present but who’s presence doesn’t soothe us.

There is no formula to this, but it is worth noticing and bringing into an open space in order to deal with hurts that have impacted our sense of self and perceptions of other people and God.

Our experience at Mercy has been that time and time again, when individuals allow themselves to be honest about who they really believe God to be, he has revealed his gentle truth. Through encounter, perceptions about God and self and others have been transformed.

You can access the tool here:

Download ‘WHAT ABOUT YOU?’