Who Am I Really?

One of the toughest questions that we all face at different times in our lives is who am I?  There have been countless books and lectures and discussions focusing this question.  Who am I?  We look to many different things to try to define us.  We try to define ourselves by our jobs or professions.  We try to define ourselves by our social or economic status.  We try to define ourselves by our families and our lineage. We find that it is not just about our profession, or education, or social status, but deep down, who am I?  What defines who I am and what I should be?   Is my life really just defined by my job or my money or my family?  Those can all be temporal things that change and flex as our lives change and move with time and influences in our world.  Do we really want to be solely defined by something that can change easily and quickly, and if not, how can we define ourselves?  If you are not allowed to use your job, family, or social status to define yourself, what would you say? 

Who am I, when everything else is taken away?  I am a child of God and I can’t ask for a greater gift than that.  That I, an unworthy human being, among millions of other human beings many who more worthy than I, have been adopted as a daughter of God.  I am overwhelmed when I think that God would love me that much.  We have been wanted and adopted by God, as children of God.   There was nothing that we have done or can do to earn the status of the children of God.  This is not an entitlement.  It is, however, a reality grasped by faith, which contradicts the ultimacy of this life’s miseries.  It is not something that we earn or deserve, but it is God reaching out in love to us first.  It is not because of our race, gender, economic class, or social status, but because God loves us.  We are not just ‘called’ the children of God we are children of God. 

"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" 1 John 3:1. Remember who you are!  God has called us to be his own. He put his name on us in our baptism and made us adopted members of his family. And at the same time that I know that I am God’s child, I also want to become more like God every day.

We are children of God because God loves us, wants us, and sent His only Son to die for us. From eternity, God chose us to be his own. Before you were ever born, before you ever had a chance to prove yourself to be a sinner, God chose you to be a member of the family of God. God made your place in the family possible by carrying out a plan of salvation through his Son, Jesus Christ. God put his name on us, and with love and grace, freely adopted us as children of God. And that work which God began has continued in our hearts to this day so that we can say with confidence, "I am a child of God!"

God bless, Rev. Liz Arakelian, www.LivingHopeEC.org