If I asked you who you are…who would you describe? And how closely would that “you” be to the “you” God has intended since before you were born? Tough questions, right? Rhetorical in some respects, since we are hard-pressed to know what God specifically intended for you. But we have a sneaking suspicion that our view of “me” is radically different than the one we hope or wish God has.
“Who am I?” is possibly the most notorious of existential questions. Odd too, right? You wouldn’t think it so difficult to know yourself. Fact is, most of us are clueless about the one thing we should be most familiar…self!
Challenge:
Think of three words that describe you. Go ask someone else for three. Enjoy the ensuing revelation and discussion!
How’d you get to who you (think) you are? Has life been a series of experiences and events that has broken you into pieces, or built you into a grand palace…or somewhere in between?
As my beautiful wife Tammy would ask, “Are you living according to the indisputable truth that God affirms about you? Or, are you living according to the lies and misdirection that has been thrust upon you by the various forces of life?” Or, something like that in Tammy-speak 😉
We think we know who we are…
Others tell us who we are…
Rarely is anyone telling us who we truly are…
We spend a lot of time trying to be someone we’re not…
This Sunday we’ll kick off a new series on Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus. When we listen to the opening words of Paul in the book of Ephesians, we may not very deeply accept them, and if we do, we think they’re well-meaning, hollow encouragement, unfortunately disconnected from what we “know to be true” about us.
This happens all the time when people seek to be an encouragement, we walk away thinking, “If the only knew.”
Of course there are those who walk away thinking, “I’m even better than they realize.” But most of those aren’t living quite fully in the center of reality.
As I processed with Tammy this past week’s Soul Healing conference, I concluded something like, “Your message sheds light on a very deep and concerning reality, very few people are fully aware of why they are who they are, what has been built within them that drives their behavior, and in fact, few people process life to the extent that they even consider that they aren’t who they we’re intended to be.” (Read that slowly…)
“I am who I am. Deal with it.”
Yet, so many of us live these lives of at least partial longing for something that seems unattainable.
Ephesians answers very deep questions about Who We Are, and as valuable as emotional intelligence and psychological inquiry are, Ephesians transcends much of that and brings us God’s perspective and truth, from where we can begin to explore where we parted the truth, to navigate the jungle we stumbled into, to begin to find our way, and how to stay the course of God’s identity, purposes and will.
Let’s continue this journey together, and see how our Creator speaks to us about who we really are in Him.
