Who am I?
That is a question everyone asks about themselves; at various times in their lives. As for me, I have asked this question many times during the course of my half century of living in this world. Each time I ask this question, I come up with different answers. When I was in first grade, I learned that if you do the same arithmetic problem, and come up with a different answer, each time, you most likely have the wrong answer. In accounting, if you add up a column of numbers and on the second trial, you come up with a different answer, you have made a mistake, so you have to redo the column until your figures are in balance.
As a committed Christian, and one day commuted Christian, it is easy to say that I am one of God’s adopted children. I am able to state that, but I also completely agree with it. I have a great deal of difficulty in emotionally accepting or internalizing that who I am is God’s created and adopted child. This who I am and this should be how I define myself and my life. This is how God see’s me, and defines me.
God knew me before I was born, He choose my parents and sisters, as the best and perfect family for me to grow up in and with. He directed my path, so that I would always have a knowledge, acceptance and love for God. Those are very big assertions yet I continue to not identify completely and fully as being so important and specially unique that God Himself desires my love, devotion, respect, and imperfect attempts at living a righteous and Godly life. I have a difficult time with my identity…in understanding who and what I am about. My education states business is my profession, but I feel inadequate, because I did not complete my education. I have had a wide array of jobs, including cab driver, care giver, ditch digger, landscape laborer, dishwasher, waiter, cook, burger flipper and French fryer, salesman, construction estimator, business analyst. accountant, entrepreneur (full briefcase with great business plans, empty pockets) and ranch hand. The problem is that I have always identified myself as an entrepreneur, partly because it sounded somewhat impressive, and it was how I saw myself, as a profession and lifestyle.
Self worth and self identity often go hand in hand, being so intertwined, that it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. Over the course of the past several years, both my self worth and self identity has meshed into a murky quagmire. I am aware of when it started, but I somehow felt helpless to prevent it or change the direction or course. While the deep quagmire trapped me only several years ago, I was headed in this direction, since birth.
In today’s world, often truth is subjectified, and nullified. The truth is always fleeting and invisible. But Lies are always there, here, and everywhere. Lies are to be believed, swapped, and embellished to their fullest extent. I believe lies. Not because they are lies, rather I accept words that are told to me by others, and that I tell to myself. I also believe the lies that my own mind creates, those are the best…and strongest.
Why are lies believed? It is often easier to believe a lie, than the truth. Many times a lie has advantages that the truth does not have. We are conditioned by society and our human nature to believe a lie, over the truth. When Eve was confronted by Satan with the fruit of the forbidden tree, Eve believed Satan’s lie, because it was easier to believe than the truth, mostly because the lie had an advantage over the truth. The lie was slanted in her favor, from her perspective, at the moment in time. If she ate the fruit, she would be “God-like”, and know the difference between good and evil, and she would not die, as God had told her. Without getting into a long and complicated theological and philosophical treatise; Eve believed the lie, because it was advantageous to her. The truth had little or no advantage to her, at that moment in time.
While lies are easy to find, truth must be searched out and excavated, refined and polished. Lies sit, like fool’s gold, waiting for their next victim: where you must work diligently to find the real gold of truth.
I am a child of God, He chose me, and He adopted me into His life. I have been given the right to call Him MY FATHER, and MY GOD! I have been given the right to ask for his assistance and guidance, when I need it. I have been given the right to inherit life in the Kingdom of God, upon my death on earth. My sins are not counted against me, instead I have been granted a full and absolute pardon. I may not always be able to discern what truth is, but I have been given the opportunity to learn and comprehend God’s Truth, even though I a may not be able to apprehend it.
God is my Father, and I must learn from Him, to see myself as he sees me. Not just sinless and without any blame, but someone unique and so important that He desires to have a real relationship with…that I am worthy and valuable.
After almost a 1,000 words, I come back to the beginning. Maybe that is what circular thought is about, but this is not circular thought, or a circular idea. Rather this is a process, and with most processes you often visit the beginning, for clarification and assurance.
I am also not a big fan of psychology, mainly because often in psychology form and substance are indistinguishable. But I do think that there is a proper place for the use of positive affirmations. The use of positive affirmation alone is of no value, and will do more harm than good. If I tell myself, I am a mean, lean fighting machine, and I go into a boxing ring without any training or practice, then I will be the only one with blood pouring from my body, laying on the ring floor, unconscious. All I did was convince myself of a lie, and now I have to pick up the pieces.
At the Cross of Jesus, every sin that I made, from birth until death, was covered with the blood, sweat and tears of Jesus, and was buried with Jesus, at that specific moment in time. Before I was born, my status, in relationship with God, was set in stone, and could not be undone. This is a true statement, not based on me, or my opinion of the statement, or any verification; rather it is strictly based on the fact that God said it. God makes the statement true.
God is God, therefore, I accept that statement as fact, and true. This also means that for some reason, beyond my understanding, God really does like me, and thinks that I am worthy and acceptable. Before I was born, God chose me, as his adopted son. He saw something in me that would be worth the time and effort to raise me.
I was raised in a family were church was the only place that “things seemed normal” and comfortable. We went to church, because it was the proper thing to do. In grade school I wanted to become a minister. My older sister felt very uncomfortable in church, but was very comfortable in the Rainbow Girls. My mother was an active member is the Order of the Eastern Star, both are affiliated organizations of Freemasonry. My father was a Christian, but was not a bible scholar. As a side note of interest, and a very memorable event in my life. As my father was being wheeled into the operating room, from pre-op, I asked him if he wanted me to pray with him, before he went in. He said yes. I prayed with and for him, and I don’t remember what I said, but in that prayer God was there, and both tears came to Dad’s eyes, and a feeling of relaxation and calm came to him. He calmly entered the operating room and had his quadruple by-pass surgery.
I can look back on my life and see God’s intervention and guiding hand. The hard part comes at melding the truth of who I am, as God see’s me, with that of the world, and I see and perceive myself to be. First and foremost, God in the Bible states to seek the Kingdom of God first. I have heard these words, since I was a very small child. As a child, it seems that I took these words to mean that I should be a good child and obey, which I was unable to fulfill with much success. Latter on I took to mean that I should read and study the bible, and know from an intellectual aspect what I believed—defend the faith. The Kingdom of God includes these aspects, but it is not limited to these acts. The Kingdom of God is God’s Economy. How God functions within his creation, How God functions outside is creation, The Kingdom of God, encompasses God’s divinity, His nature, and purpose.
God created all that exists. Why did God decide to create? Before creation, God existed, fully content, and not lacking for anything, outside of himself. On the other hand, God being a creative entity would have to create something, outside of Himself, in order to bring out that creative capacity Creation is an outward extension of God. God exists outside of his creation, but he actively participates and involves himself in his creation, and is ultimately responsible for the activities in His creation. His activities include setting Himself up as the King of His creation or Kingdom, sustaining the quality and viability of His Kingdom. Setting up rules of order and conduct for each and every aspect of the Kingdom, involves God making Choices. God designs, creates, and makes choices, and is sovereign. God created a world that would be independent, and separate, yet require His participation and involvement. This only God could do, and He did it with perfection. God is always involved in both the micro and macro levels
Something made God take special notice, when He created mankind. Humanity was created with special qualities and functions, that God himself said, “Wow!!, this is really cool!” Something very similar, yet different from God, sets Humanity apart from everything else that exists. Humans were given the ability the reason, think, create, and make autonomous decisions, grow and develop a certain level of independence, yet dependent on others and on Him. We are God’s greatest creation, because He chose us to be the way we are, simply because it pleases Him. More than anything else, humanity embodies the Godliness of the Creator.
With humanity God chose to customize each individual person. God is unique, as there is nothing like God, so to He chose humans to be completely unique. All atoms and electrons are not differentiated from themselves, the same with birds, and the same with angels. Why God did it this way? All I can say that he chose us to be this way, because it pleases Him, and He is the creator. I am able to formulate an opinion, as to how he does it. This is at best a guess that is most likely full of holes. I believe that before birth, and outside of time, place, and circumstance constraints, God “created” or pre-created, or designed, certain specific human aspects, qualities or traits into each single person born into his world. I believe that a relationship between God and the “person” was developed and nurtured, and that each is very unique and special, but also restricted in that sin was unable to corrupt, and we lacked humanity. We were unable to sin, think, create, grow, develop, or make a choice. This was much like an incubator stage. Our unique personality was born, fostered, developed, and completed. Now we are ready for birth, but a birth that is specifically chosen by God. Time, circumstances, events are human constraints, but they, like everything else, are created by God, for God and His pleasure. I was born in the late summer of 1957, to Dale and Irma Wyman, in Glendive Montana, because that was God’s choice. I was not born in Africa, China, or Europe. I was born in 1957, not in 2057, 1857 or 15bc. God choose the time, place, events and circumstances of my birth. He did it, because He is God, and it was his decision, and it perfectly pleased him. This choice was done because all factors involved in leading me to God, and accepting Christ as my savior, were optimized. I also believe that the opposite is also true. That God has the right to choose the circumstances of the birth of an individual, which will minimize, or at least not maximize all the factors that lead a person to God. God is actively, involved in the lives of every single person. He chooses to pursue everyone. It is our choice to accept or reject him.
Before my birth, God developed a relationship with me. I can neither prove that, nor do I remember it, yet I do believe it to be true, and hold it as truth. I believe that God gave me the personality, gifts, talents and abilities to overcome the circumstances and events of my life, to become a Child of God, adopted into His family. I like to think that His parting words to me, before my birth was, “you have been given a hard and dangerous road to take in life, but I will be always with you, carrying you, when you are tired, and when you are unable to go further. I have made it this way, not because you deserve it, or to punish you, but that you, and you alone are able to live this life, and succeed, with my help.” Your time on earth, what you learn, and the choices you make, the events, circumstances, people, gifts, talents, abilities, and your personality are given to you, not just to ensure your success, but ingredients needed to prepare you to be my dearly beloved son, and live in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
I am a beloved child of God, He chose me, He loves me, and He will heal me, and using the ingredients He choose for me, will make me into the person He wants for me to be, so that I am able to serve Him, and others. Writing this, pondering the words, has been both an exercise and a process. I am starting to believe those words, as truth, because they are in fact God’s words, not words I typed out on the computer, or in my mind, but words from His mouth, and recorded in the Bible.
I am broken, and am in Intensive Care. Identity is no longer based on an occupation, avocation, what I perceive myself to be, or how others see me, rather on God’s love and passion for me. It is not based on a set of skills, abilities, talents, or circumstances and events; rather it is based on my devotion to God, and how I learn to use the resources God gives me. I have made a choice that from this point on, my identity—of who I am, will be based on that I am an adopted and beloved Son of God. This is my first step, my first choice to regain my status. It is a status that I desire, and am worthy of obtaining. Is it possible to seek first the Kingdom of God, in all aspects of life? Is it even practical? |
