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My wife met with a long time client this week. He has been a pastor for many decades now. He comes from Whales and has one of this accents that just beg for him to be listened to. He told Barbara a line from a prayer that he puts before God each and every day of his life. Pastor Barry Jones asks of God this amazing line, "I am seeking to be what I am…."
As simple as the words are in this prayer, the depth of what is being prayed requires us to ponder this requested. Notice Pastor Jones isn't asking that God reveal who he is. He isn't even asking that God reveal what He will become. This wise preacher is asking that he be empowered to look for and live out what he already is in God's eyes.
When we ask God to show us who we are we are kind of spitting in the face of what God has already told us. The Bible is filled with proclamations as to who we are. We are the beloved of this God. We are His chosen. We are His purposed ambassadors to this world. We are His Children. Doesn't get much clearer than that. Asking God to reveal who we are in this light seems kind of foolish.
Yet that's what I have found myself doing time and time again. It is when I don't like how my life is unfolding that identity can get so muddled. The reality of who God has said I am doesn't quite sit right when things aren't going my way. It is when I move from what God says about me to trying to find some alternate identity, that works better as I see it, that victim thinking can really set in.
Not only is asking God who we are, in light of all He has said about us, kind of insulting to God, asking Him to reveal what we will become is something that doesn't make a lot of sense either. I know that we have been taught the importance of having a plan. With a plan, we can figure out the steps needed to help make that plan happen in identity building ways. This is a reality that works just about every else other than when it comes to who we are. Knowing who God is going to make us to be doesn't do a single thing to get us closer to who we are. In fact, knowing the end from the beginning would move us in a direction of independence. That direction actually works to make the end that much more difficult to reach.
God wants us to go on this journey of self with Him. He knows who we are going to be. We catch glimpses of that goal when we take our eyes off what we are doing and put them on the one that gives us the ability to do in the first place. The only thing we need to know about the end is that God knows where it will be. He knows who we are becoming. He is completely satisfied with the pace it takes for us to get there with Him. With God, it's always about the process of relationship that happens on the path to getting to where we will end up anyways.
Let's dive into this prayer a bit and see what we can learn. First of all Pastor Jones says he is seeking. When we seek, we look with diligence. We are prepared to turn over every rock to look for what we seek. Seeking is a full time job. Everything we do becomes part of the process of seeking when we take seeking seriously. That's how this life is to be lived out. We seek identity from God. That identity comes in to a sharper focus as we believe what He has said about us and apply that reality in all that we do.
What is Pastor Jones seeking in this simple little prayer? It is "to be". Notice he doesn't say "to do." We have the tendency to think that doing is the epitome of identity. From God's perspective, being is what makes us who we are. It is when we "be" that doing takes on a power that we just can't muster up when we use action as a strategy to help us find identity.
What is it that this wonderful pastor seeks to be? It is the "what I AM." Notice this request in stated in the present tense. It is the here and now that Pastor Jones is looking to for when it comes to what it takes to be what God calls him to be. It is who God is that makes Pastor Jones feel that he is OK in God's eyes. It is the God in this man that makes such a simple prayer have the power of identity needed in this world working to get us to doubt who we are.
I love looking at and learning from the prayers of others. It helps to put my prayer life into some perspective. I once did a little research project and looked up all the prayers I could find in the Bible. Don't you know that a lot can be learned from what people were saying to God when they felt called to cry out to Him.
I want to close this presentation today with one of my favorite prayers in the Bible. Take a look at this prayer offered up by King David.
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name. 1 Chronicles 29:11-13 (NIV)
Just like with Pastor Jones' prayer, there is a lot going on here in these words from David. What I want us to focus on is a pretty amazing ratio. I don't know if you noticed but there is a pretty convincing ratio of identity words that I think we as victors need to take to heart. Seven times the word "yours or you" are mentioned to the one time "me" is mentioned in our reading today.
I think identity is more understandable when we consider the same ratio in our lives. The overwhelming weight of who we are should be put in God's court. Very little of what we do should ever be used to help figure out who we are. It is when we get this ratio backwards that victim thinking starts to rule in our lives.
Take time to call out to God today. Ask Him to be part of the process of getting the "I AM" into all that you do. It is then that you will begin to see the fullness of who you are as the victor God made you to be shines in amazing ways today.
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