Who Am I?

Who Am I?

1 John 3:1

            Amy Peterson, writing for the devotional booklet Our Daily Bread, recounts the story told in the children’s book Nothing, by Mick Inkpen.  The central character is an old, worn-out stuffed animal.  He is so faded he can’t remember who he is.  He hears movers refer to him as nothing, and thinks that’s his name.

            Nothing meets other animals and begins to remember things about himself.  He remembers he used to have a tail, and whiskers, and stripes.  Eventually he meets a tabby cat who helps him find his way home.  Nothing finally remembers who he is:  a stuffed cat named Toby.  His owner gives him renewed life by sewing on new ears, a new tail, new whiskers and stripes.  Toby is restored to his original condition, and to his loving family.

            It is so easy for us to forget who we are.  The chapel in a music camp I used to attend had a sign over the pulpit which read, “I come here to find myself; it is so easy to get lost in the world.”  I read that sign many times.  Over the years it helped me redefine who I was, clarify my identity, and prepare me for adult life.  The days I spent in that camp setting may well have been the deciding factor in my decision to pursue a career in music education.

            It is easy for us to lose our way in the world.  The cares and worries of everyday life, the struggle to maintain our identity in the face of competing claims on our hearts, souls and minds, the many voices that call us to follow new, interesting, but sometimes dangerous paths—all these can lead us astray and make us feel lost and alone in a big, wide, often scary world.

            Once lost it becomes easy to forget who we are.  How can we know who we are when we don’t know where we are, or in which direction we should be heading?  Like the small child who has let go of his parent’s hand in a crowded store, we stand still, frozen to the spot, casting our eyes in all directions, trying to find something or someone familiar, something we can grasp hold of, someone we can cling to for comfort, security, identity.

            John the evangelist came from a secure family.  He and his brother James helped their father, Zebedee earn the family income through fishing.  They woke every morning knowing who they were, where they were going, and what each day would hold. 

            Then Jesus called them, and they followed.  There must have been times when they wondered who they were, where they were going, and what would happen to them that day.  They became so lost that they made a request of Jesus which was out of line for who they were and how they had been raised.  Jesus could have chastised them for their ignorance and impertinence.  Instead he treated them lovingly, gently reprimanding them and helping them find their path again. Still, it wasn’t until after the resurrection that they fully understood who they were and where their lives were headed. 

            John was the writer in the family.  Although we believe someone else wrote down the words we read in the gospel which bears his name, we have three letters he addressed to the early church.  In his first letter he said, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are!” (italics mine). 

            John knew who he was.  He was a child of God.  God had, in effect, sewn his missing parts back on, restored his identity, made him whole and beautiful.

            But John’s discovery of his true identity was only the beginning.  He extends the family relationship to all of us.  We are all God’s children.  We’ve all had our identities renewed and refreshed. 

When someone asks who we are, we can reply, “I’m not nothing; I’m a child of God!”