Who Am I?

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Who Am I?

Let me ask you a question. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot over the past couple of years. Do you believe the promises you’ve learned, or have read, or are just being introduced to?

Do you really believe them?

Now let me give you a painfully honest answer. For me, it was no. I thought I did. I grew up with Jesus in church. I was taught well, had wonderful, believing parents. They taught me the Bible, taught me prayer, taught me Jesus loves me – not just the song, but the fact. I believed it…and I didn’t. I always believed Jesus loves me in the broad sense that He loves everyone. I always believed I am saved and will go to Heaven when I die. I think what I really thought was that, while He loves us and wants us all to go to Heaven, my life wasn’t “big” enough to bother Him. And when I say big, I suppose I mean important. And because of my spiritual immaturity, I missed a very important Truth.

Jesus. Loves. Me.

Jesus LOVES me!

Jesus loves ME!

Personally, unequivocally, deeply, joyously! The promises in His Word, from His heart, are for ME!

And they are for YOU. He loves you the very same way.  

Recently, I have been asking questions. Questions I technically know the answers to. I know the “Sunday School answers,” as a dear friend of mine calls them.

Yes, I am important to God. Yes, I am called to do His work. Yes, He loves me. Yes, He will lead me and be beside me. These things are all definitely, thankfully, wonderfully true!

But doubt is a sneaky thing. You can doubt without even realizing it’s doubt! Satan loves to use doubt – very often in the form of feelings of inadequacy – to steal our joy and our purpose. Especially, it seems, when you’ve actually found a purpose you feel God calling you to.

I don’t doubt God. That is, I have never doubted His Sovereignty, His Power, or His saving Grace. I believe every word of the Bible is true.

Don’t I? I mean, I’ve seen so much of it in action. I witnessed miracle after miracle when my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I witnessed a deep change in his heart and actions as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit, after some severe temptations and misleading from Satan that nearly destroyed us in the summer following that. There have been some very major spiritual battles won in our lives over the past couple of years. That is all God. His love, His Grace, His power, His promises in action.

But what about when we doubt ourselves? I have done a lot of that in my life. So many of us do, in so many ways. We compare ourselves to others – are we as smart/attractive/successful as others. Are we as far along in our walk with Jesus?

I did this a lot when I was younger. I compared myself to my sister, the pretty, smart, outgoing one, whom I looked up to growing up. And to my brother as he became a grown man, the strong, protective, outspoken one, sure in his beliefs and willing to defend them. I, on the other hand, was the more emotionally sensitive one, who struggled for grades past middle school, rarely got asked out on dates, felt like I lived behind a mask of acne, and took refuge in books.

I have finally come to understand that there is no comparison, because we are all exactly who God made us to be. David said:

I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Psalm 139:14

Notice there is no period separating the two thoughts. There is only a break in the sentence, an elaboration on the first thought…”You made me, Lord – and everything You make is wonderful!”

He made you. And everything He makes is wonderful! Not the same. Not “the things you make to look like this or to be like this are really awesome, God.” Everything. Uniquely and beautifully wonderful.

Sometimes we compare ourselves to ourselves…to what we think we ought to be. Or what we think we ought to be in order for God to use us.

Who am I?

I believe this is a question on the minds of so many of us who would like to be used mightily by God. I also believe it is a tactic of Satan to deter us from following the desire to move out of our comfort zone, to try something risky, to be bold for God.

This is also the heart of the questions I have recently begun to ask. There are many…all of them really. Who do I think I am to try to tell others what I think they need to know, to think I’m “righteous” enough to try to set an example for others? What do I know, anyway? When am I going to find time, or see some results of my efforts? Where do I begin, or go from here? Why do I think I’m good enough at this blogging thing for anyone to even want to read it? How do I get it to where people can see it? How do I know I’m doing it right? How does an unknown small-town girl like me come to think she can make a difference?

The “Sunday School answer” here is, “I am a child of God!” Another beautiful Truth I do not doubt or mean to detract from in any way!

But again, doubt is a sneaky tool of a sneaky adversary.

I am a child of God…but I’m no leader like Moses. I’m no soldier/poet/king like King David, or pure like Mary, or have the grit and courage of Paul. I’m no Billy Graham, or Mother Theresa, or (you fill in the blank).

Guess what? Neither were they. Like so many other great people, not one of these spiritual icons was anyone special – worldly speaking – when they were chosen to lead others, to be examples, to answer God’s call. To obey. You probably already know their stories.

Moses was the son of a slave in such dire conditions that he was put in a river to save his life.

King David was the youngest of many brothers, a shepherd (which was not an especially lofty position!), and so unlikely to be chosen his father didn’t even call him in from the fields when the prophet came to choose the next king! By all accounts, at the time he was a skinny dreamer, not even old enough to join the armies or big enough to fit armor.

Mary was a teenage girl from the least respected town in Israel.

Paul was the most murderous opposer of Jesus and his ministry and Truth.

Before you start to think “Well, these are examples from the Bible, they’re supposed to be against-the-odds examples,” remember that:

Billy Graham was one of four children raised on a dairy farm in the south, who came to preach to more people than any other person in history – in HISTORY! – not even counting his books and broadcast audiences!

Mother Teresa was from Skopje, Macedonia and was raised from an early age by a poor, single mother after her father died. She became known as one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20^th century, and was sainted.

So…who am I?

I am nobody, really, in this world. A loved daughter of Christian parents in small town Indiana. In earthly terms, a relative nobody from a little-respected town.

But, it doesn’t matter who I am.

It’s not about who I am. It’s not about who you are. Or who Moses was. Or David, Mary, Paul, Billy, or Mother Teresa.

It’s about God. It’s about His promises. It’s about what He has called us to. All of us. Anyone willing to listen and obey.

Who do I think I am?

God calls us:

A kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6)

A chosen people, a royal priesthood…that we may declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

He calls us to:

Devote ourselves to the public reading of the Scriptures, to preaching, and to teaching. (1 Timothy 4:13)

Preach the word…correct, rebuke, and encourage. (2 Timothy 4:2)

Let the message of Christ dwell among [us] richly as we teach and admonish one another with wisdom through the Word. (Colossians 3:16)

How?

“This is what the Lord your God says – your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the Lord your God, who teaches you…who directs you in the way you should go.’” (Isaiah 48:17)

“Your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘this is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth.” (Acts1:8)

It’s not about me. It’s not about you. When we doubt ourselves, we doubt God. Because whatever is accomplished for Him, and for His kingdom, is accomplished by Him…we need only to submit, to listen, and to obey.

Who am I?

I am a chosen person, royal priest, obedient follower, Spirit-filled joyfully submitted child of God!

Who are you?

 

James 2:17 – “…faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”