Thanks for the emails and input from yesterday. We're off to a good start. God-discovery elicited some good feedback. I'd like to take one of them and run with it a little today. The quote from one comment went like this: "The more we discover God the more we find our true identity in him." I love those two words, "IN HIM". Identity is an interesting construct. Ah, the age-old question, "Who am I?", "what is my identity?", comes to the surface at different times in our lives. Let's take this in two directions:
First, maybe we need to change the question a little to read like this: "Whose Am I?" (I know the grammar is bad and somewhere in Canada there is a former english teacher of mine cringing). If we ask this question this way it unfolds a different image in my mind. Who am I creates ambivalence, indecision, agitation, pressure (like it's up to me decide who I am in the first place!? Like it matters to eternity who I am anyway!?). Asking the second question starts me on the road of something defined; defined by God, that is. I am His. That can and should be sufficient for me.
The second direction would be to find value in what we were created to be. We find this in Genesis 1:26 when God said, "Let us make man in our own image, in our likeness..." Whose am I? I am God's. What is that like? I am made in in His image and likeness. How can we be confused? Our identity is found in the fact that we are created in the image of God. We are His, and we are made to be like Him.
Another response from yesterday that I might tackle tomorrow is the two-word phrase, "knowing God." those two words are packed with meaning for us. How close can you get to God? So close you KNOW Him.
Forever God's,
Jim
(also, if you want to leave a comment, look down below this sentence to where it says 6 comments (the number may be different). Click on that and a pop-up window will appear, thanks!)
2 comments:
If the question, "Who am I?", is asked in the context of the question, "Whose am I?", then we need to make sure that the answer we find is constrained and expanded by the same context. If we don't, in our very individualistic culture with a very individualistic (and often very private) view of the world in terms of religion (I use that word very loosely), it is very easy for us to find a very wrong answer to the question. I think one way to help us find a right answer to the question is to also consider the many complex and intricate facets of the question, "Who are we?"
Another good question, thanks Matt. Who are we is also determined early in scripture when from pretty much the beginning God says that it is not good for man to be alone. we are created to be in relationship! At least that's a start for the "Who are we?" answer, anyway.
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