Thought for Today
Psalm 139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
Isaiah 9:6 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Hebrews 12:7 Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?
Two questions: how well do you know yourself? How well do you want to know yourself? They are important questions. They are existentially important to successfully navigating the troubling waters of being a person, a human being. They are rarely honestly engaged by most of us.
Before you quickly dismiss those questions as inane and irrelevant, consider for a minute how anyone can grapple with life without understanding oneself. How can I or you hope to understand others without understanding ourselves?
I often refer to myself as a child of God. I find much of my limited understanding of myself in terms of my relationship with God. I also often refer to myself as being ‘of an age.’ It is my personal euphemism to avoid saying “old.” I am truly ‘of an age,’ yet still there are those times when I surprise myself in how I react or fail to react to a situation. At best, I can only claim to have some limited knowledge about who, what and whose I am.
Many adults begin their journey of self-awareness at the locus of education and/or career. I am an engineer. Some are doctors, lawyers, etc. As I think about those 2 questions, however, I realize that my school training and occupation for much of my adult life do not define who I am. They do tell me something about my talents and abilities, my proclivities and even my first response to solving problems. But, I am more than merely a profession or a career.
When you are first introduced to someone, how do you describe yourself? Are you a (fill in the blank in terms of profession)? Are you a husband or wife, parent or child? Being a native Texan, I might be tempted to assert my geographic nobility. The place of my birth does not define who I am. Neither does the place where I currently reside.
Even my name does not define who I am. My name is merely a label describing something about my ancestry and my individual identity within my larger family, clan or tribe. In a nation like the U.S.A. it doesn’t even tell much about my family, clan or tribe because we are a nation of immigrants. Some of our ancestral families, clans and tribes just immigrated earlier than others.
I am a child of God, the Creator of Creation. The family of the children of God encompasses everyone in heaven or on earth. Some of us are more aware of being family members, some are totally unaware and definitely do not want to be aware, but all of us are children of God. In answer to that second question, I do want to know myself well enough to be constantly aware of the fact that I am a child of God.
Being a child of God is both comforting and terrifying. The psalmist understood the implications of all of that. God knows each of God’s children fully and completely . . . even those thoughts and temptations we do not want to admit to ourselves. God created the very atoms which form our being, the electrons coursing through our nervous systems.
Jesus said, “Luke 18:17 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." Far too often we think of that in terms of acting like a little child, in terms of being and acting childishly. I believe it means that our Father, our tribal or clan Chieftain wants us to be in a direct and personal relationship with Him. He wants us to understand our absolute and total dependance on Him, to understand our total reliance on our Creator God. He wants us to acknowledge and express our gratitude for Creation and for life itself.
Maybe most importantly, He wants us to love Him and each other and to act like we do. Little children accept without question their absolute dependance on their parents and the unquestioned love of their parents. When asked about the most important commandments, Jesus “Luke 10:27 . . . answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’"
Know yourself, know your Creator, trust God,
Pastor Ray