Anyone who has watched more than one episode of CSI, the original, knows the theme song that goes “Who are you? Who, Who?” And if you’ve tried looking for a job recently, you probably did a 30 second commercial of yourself, defining, who are you? Most of us know who we are, our name, our occupation, who are families are, but, who are you?
My soul searching the last few months has centered on trying to get a job and moving in only one direction. Since my interests range from wanting to write children’s books to working with teens to mission work to developing web sites to using search engines to generate sales, I had a small problem. Who am I? What do I want to be when I grow up?
The answer to that question has always been easy. Uh, okay, it hasn’t. I want to be a writer. I want to be an artist. I want to help people. I love music, enjoying it, making it, just music. I enjoy creating something someone needs to help their business, therefore, taking a small business owner through the first steps of a web site. I want so many things in so many directions, it is hard to choose just one.
My small group leader said, “You always talk about web development, I think you should go with that.” So I moved in that direction, got me a 30 second commercial done and started applying for jobs.
But what about who I am, really? Who does God want me to be?
Romans 8: 15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!
So, I am a child of God. And he loves me. I can rest and relax in that.
Romans 8: 31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us! —is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
