Who Am I?

“Who am I? What am I doing here? Am I on the right path?” It isn’t just young people who ask these questions. People of all ages wrestle with the question, “who am I?” This query will pop up periodically in all of our lives, when life takes unexpected changes and also in the absence of struggle, which often keeps us preoccupied. At times, some may even go so far as to say they have lost every purpose in life. However, even in peaceable and agreeable seasons, when one has time to reflect, this same question arises. Really, it is an insecurity that only emerges in the absence of our one, true purpose. We were not created to have a purpose or identity apart from the One who created us and we sense this in moments when we draw close to God, when we immerse ourselves in prayer or the reading of the Word. In these moments all the questions about identity, who we are, or what we were meant to be, fade away as though we have found it in that moment and are deeply satisfied with the answer. That is because in those moments we connect with our Creator, who created us for a purpose, His purpose. Living vessels, carrying a living spirit, created in God’s own image, to glorify Him in our lives. It almost sounds too simple and abstract, but it is real, more real than any fading or fleeting thing in this world can ever be to us. No wonder when our Lord prayed for us in the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer, He said:
“1 Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you… 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do… 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours… 11 …Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one… 20 I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:1-23)

This is perhaps one of the clearest examples in Scripture that speaks to our purpose and identity: To be one with the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ, close to the Father through our Lord. What a great place that is! That’s where all those plaguing questions about our purpose and what we are here for, find their answer. It is not through tasks or accomplishments, but in truly being one with the One who created us.

I want to encourage you today that if life has troubled you and brought you to a point of questioning the purpose of it all, try connecting and immersing yourself in the Lord and through Him, in the Father. Allow the presence of the Eternal and Unchanging to permeate your confusion and uncertainty. Allow the presence of God to touch your heart when hurts dominate, and to settle your mind from trying to figure out a way forward. Choose instead, like the Lord prayed for you, to connect to Him in being one with Him. Just as when our electronic device runs low on battery and we connect it to a power source to recharge it, connect to the source of your life again and be re-charged with life eternal and the joy that can only be found in His presence!