WHO AM I?
Matthew 12:48-50
I John 3:2
In the mid 1970's, when I was looking for my first job after college, Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder ran this commercial.
A young woman is frantically trying to get ready for a job interview. She looks into the bathroom mirror, runs her fingers through her hair and says, "Why did I cut my hair ... I look like a squirrel!" After pawing through the clothes hamper looking for something to wear, she returns to the mirror and asks, "Who am I?!?"
To which her roommate, who is calmly applying her mascara replies, "I haven't the slightest idea."
"Who am I" is a question we all deal with one way or another, whether we are adolescents testing our boundaries and trying our parents' patience or older adults adjusting to the limits of aging bodies. With each new stage of life and the changes it brings, we are defining and redefining who we are. Yet, no matter the stages and ages of life, there is one constant. We are ultimately and always will be children of God.
The God who created the universe and everything in it doesn't really need anything from us or the things we can make with human hands. So, it was not out of any kind of need but out of love that God created human beings in God's image to be loved and to love.
God is our creator and our divine parent, making us God's beloved children destined for glory. That makes us joint-heirs with Jesus, and through Christ we become partakers in the divine promises of life abundant and eternal life through the acceptance of the Gospel. That's our glorious destiny. While all people are children of God, it is through Christ, and Christ alone, that we reach the full capacity of our relationship with God.
Sometimes, in the demands of life, in the confusion and tension of change, in the hurry and rush of overloaded schedules, it's easy to forget who we are. Our wholeness may get fragmented into the roles we play. We're also bombarded with all these negative and false images of who we are. We get all these messages that we're "too" -- too young, too inexperienced, too old, too out of it.
But the ultimate truth is not in what the world says we are, but who God says we are. As Reuben Job writes in Three Simple Questions, "Ultimately and always we belong to God and no power can snatch us from the security, identity and safety of that belonging."
Who are you? Who are a beloved child of God, and you are destined for glory.
I John 3:2
In the mid 1970's, when I was looking for my first job after college, Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder ran this commercial.
A young woman is frantically trying to get ready for a job interview. She looks into the bathroom mirror, runs her fingers through her hair and says, "Why did I cut my hair ... I look like a squirrel!" After pawing through the clothes hamper looking for something to wear, she returns to the mirror and asks, "Who am I?!?"
To which her roommate, who is calmly applying her mascara replies, "I haven't the slightest idea."
"Who am I" is a question we all deal with one way or another, whether we are adolescents testing our boundaries and trying our parents' patience or older adults adjusting to the limits of aging bodies. With each new stage of life and the changes it brings, we are defining and redefining who we are. Yet, no matter the stages and ages of life, there is one constant. We are ultimately and always will be children of God.
The God who created the universe and everything in it doesn't really need anything from us or the things we can make with human hands. So, it was not out of any kind of need but out of love that God created human beings in God's image to be loved and to love.
God is our creator and our divine parent, making us God's beloved children destined for glory. That makes us joint-heirs with Jesus, and through Christ we become partakers in the divine promises of life abundant and eternal life through the acceptance of the Gospel. That's our glorious destiny. While all people are children of God, it is through Christ, and Christ alone, that we reach the full capacity of our relationship with God.
Sometimes, in the demands of life, in the confusion and tension of change, in the hurry and rush of overloaded schedules, it's easy to forget who we are. Our wholeness may get fragmented into the roles we play. We're also bombarded with all these negative and false images of who we are. We get all these messages that we're "too" -- too young, too inexperienced, too old, too out of it.
But the ultimate truth is not in what the world says we are, but who God says we are. As Reuben Job writes in Three Simple Questions, "Ultimately and always we belong to God and no power can snatch us from the security, identity and safety of that belonging."
Who are you? Who are a beloved child of God, and you are destined for glory.
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