:: The Memory Burns ::

:: Monday, April 26, 2010 ::

Who Am I?

In general it is hard to accept who we are. As human beings we have a hard time accepting and even understanding the deepest, most intimate qualities of ourselves. This is why we have heroes. This is why we have people who we can look up to. And, I imagine, this is also why we look for faults in those around us. Knowing that others aren't perfect makes us feel a little bit better when we face our own imperfections.

As a Christian I know a God who calls himself, "I am who I am". That's a pretty cloudy statement on the surface, but as we get to know God - as we learn to establish a personal relationship with him - we come to understand that "I am who I am" is the perfect way to think of him. He is different for all of us. He is different to different individual people and he is different to individual cultures. And yet, at his core, he is the same to all of us.

Isn't that a vexing thought? God is different to us all and yet he is the same. He is in heaven and yet he is all around us here on earth. He is an all knowing and all powerful being (for lack of a better word) and yet he is our closest friend. He is a mystery, and so, I ask you, is it any mystery that we are a mystery to ourselves?

If we are truly created in the image of a God who is "I am who I am" then why can't we accept ourselves for who we are? Why do we strive to be like our friends, our mentors, our family members, our heroes, or even the fictional characters that we involve in our lives? Why do we strive to be something other than who we are, particularly when we put ourselves in relationship to God who knows no bounds and who is always seeing us exactly as who we are. After all, he created us!

Let me shift the focus to myself for clarification. I bask in a relationship with God. I have chosen to enter into a two-way relationship with him (at its base form). I have accepted a contract with him, a deep enough relationship with him, where I have agreed to become so intimate with him that I offer full disclosure of my faults, my sins, my deepest fears and sorrows, and all of the joys and triumphs of my life. I lay it all on the line for him to see. Because Adam and Eve are such great role models in their failure in the garden I don't bother to try to hide anything from God anymore. I know he is there, watching over me, involved in everything I do or fail to do; aware of it before I am aware of it myself.

So why, then, if I know God is so fully present to and aware of my activities, and if I know that he created me, wrote me on the keyboard of life and painted a picture of me to spark my creation, why do I hide from myself? If I know that I can't fool God, why do I try to fool myself? If I believe that God is "I am who I am" and that he created me, why can't I accept that I am who I am? I am who I am! There is nothing that I can do about it, and yet I can't resist the urge to fight against it and wish (at times) that I were like someone else!

And furthermore, why, since deciding to declare myself a Christian a few years ago, why do I find that my relationship with God has changed? Why do I find that that relationship takes work now? I am no more or less aware of his presence in my life now than I was back then. He's never been missing from my life. But now that I have entered into this full disclosure relationship with him I don't feel his presence as naturally as I once did.

I thought as a child, back in my Taoist days, and so I trusted and lived faithfully as a child. But now that I have signed this agreement with God, now that I have entered into the fully-aware Christian arena, my relationship with him is dampened by the realities and responsibilities of the faith. You would think this would help, but it doesn't.

Yes, my friends, life is a big mystery. God is a gigantic mystery. You and I are little, mini-mysteries. It's all a big Christian CSI game, looking for clues, hints, evidence and trusting in your gut (to coin the phrase of one of MY fictional heroes, Leroy Jethro Gibbs!).

I am who I am. I just have no idea who that is half the time. Or, maybe I just have a hard time accepting the truth of it as easily as God does.

Labels: God, self

:: Greta 4/26/2010 09:55:00 PM [+] 1 comments

1 Comments:

I had a discussion with a friend last night that directly relates to this. We were both saying how we used to run when things got tough in relationships and in life, and that we still fight that instinct within us. But that we are feeling called, in this case by God, to learn to work through the difficulties. Because it is really in these difficulties, in the trying times, that the real relationship is built. Sounds like you know what I'm talking about.
Our search for our true selves is really our search for God. And the relationship we have with him, in being ourselves, is the most challenging relationship we have. And we can't escape it. Let me know if you discover any tricks. ;)

By  Angie, at 11:08 AM  

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