Who Do You Say I Am?

Not too long ago, I was in a conversation with a young man I’ve known for quite some time. He’s always impressed me as someone who is in earnest about being a disciple of Jesus, someone who really wants to make a return to the Lord for all the good He has done for him. 

In the course of the discussion, he asked if he could share a song he had recently written. I told him I’d be delighted. He then proceeded to pull out his guitar and sang for me a song that could be the theme song for almost every person I know. It was all about identity. Like all of us, this man struggles with certain sins that tend to creep up time and time again. And, like all of us, this man has often defined himself by his sins. He had, until recently, seen himself as an addict. In fact, “addict” had become his identity. 

The devil knows your name, but he calls you by your sin. The Father knows your sin, but He calls you by name. I’m not sure who said that first, but Mary on our team often repeats this powerful truth to bishops, priests and lay leaders. 

This man who visited me, by the power of the Holy Spirit, had finally come to a place where he could see himself in a new light. He wasn’t, in his words, “a sinner.” He was a son. And not just a son but a beloved son, a son in whom God takes great delight. 

So it is with each and every one of us. 

The saints often said that God works in most people by going deeper and deeper on a single point (as opposed to the pedagogy of a teacher who might move in a more linear fashion, from point A to point B and so on). In other words, in most of us, God finds a core issue, wound, weakness, or area of struggle, and burrows deeper and deeper and deeper into the soil of our hearts. For most of us, that core issue, wound, weakness and area of struggle is identity.

How do you define yourself? Who are you? Really?

Back when I was in seminary I remember a wise priest mentor saying to me, “Despite outward appearances, John, most people don’t really believe they’re good. Few people you’ll encounter have ever really experienced unconditional love; for most of their lives they’ve only encountered love as a reward.” 

There are a lot of beautiful people in chains. 

Indeed, many of us spend much of our lives living under the weight of trying to measure up, hoping that some achievement, some title, some degree, some talent, some reputation, will make us good enough in the eyes of others, and help us “make the cut.” Even with God. For some of us, especially with God.

Most of us are familiar with Jesus’ question to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi, “Who do you say that I am?” Perhaps this week, mindful that many of us are much like that man who came to see me, we might do well to turn that question around and ask it of Jesus.

“Lord, who do You say I am? Who am I to You?”