Day 3100 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 4:24 NIV

“Who am I?” I can’t imagine considering that question thinking that I had to find the answer inside myself.

Because I can’t understand how the answer could possibly be something that I myself could define.

Because I didn’t make me, only the mistakes that have made me who I am today. Yet, knowing that it was those many mistakes I made that made me who I am today, I don’t know who I’d have been had I not made those mistakes. So as best as I can figure, who I am is simply a list of mistakes that have led me away from who I could have been had I been bold enough to follow the path I didn’t choose all those times I chose what I now know was a mistake.

Stands to reason that the answer to who I am must therefore come from someone who knows far better than I do. And thankfully, He came to lead me back. Came to lead us all back. But it’s a journey!

They say that in order to know where you're going you must first know where you've been. But to know where you've been demands an understanding of where you are. Yet to understand where you are, it doesn't hurt to know who you are. And well, who we are is the culmination of all that we've done in all the places we've been that have led us to who we are doing what we are where we are.

But the sad thing is that to look around at the ways in which the world is living, it seems a great many haven't the slightest idea as to who they are anymore.

We've began to forget the basis of our existence. Things that just a few years ago were undebatable are now entirely confused and confiscated. There's been given a fluidity to everything as if everything means nothing as what we think it means or what someone else thinks it means is liable to change by the time our very next breath comes around.

But I'm terrified to think about the danger that all of this kind of "progress" is posing to people. The grander scheme of the impact these 'movements' have on a society is one thing, but the affect they have on the souls caught in the stream is something that seems almost entirely unconsidered, at best left to be a complete afterthought. But what if what comes after is a kind of consequences we can't bear to bear?

What if when we've reached the point where afterthoughts are finally thought about we find that we've indeed lost something so special that there's absolutely no chance of getting it back?

You see, I think that's one of the underlying reasons as to why so many in society are undermining their own appreciation of salvation. We're all so broken and bleeding because of all the times of our betraying ourselves that we've been left carrying so many scars and flawed flashbacks that all we see are the reasons in which God should rightfully want nothing to do with us.

We've become a people so focused on how we look in the mirror that we've forgotten to consider what's looking back at us in that mirror. We're losing our interest in the responsibility to uphold the image in which we were made. But I think it's happening because we realize just what we've done to the image in which we were made. And sadly, the injuries that we're inflicting upon that image are not able to be hidden anymore.

Not that they ever were.

But folks are going so far as to mutilate and mangle in order to better portray the image they think the world wants to see. Yes, we've grown so desperate for attention and approval that folks are to the point of a willingness to undergo the entire process of undoing all they are, all so they can become what the world says they want.

And the saddest part is that the attention and approval have been offered freely without all the physical and emotional risks involved in our world's approach.

You see, there's this cry that been longing for our learning since the dawn of man. The echo of Eden reminds us that we're so much more than what the world's convinced us to be. We're not merely puppets on a string being dragged along by the warped wants and whims of the wishes of the wicked. We were made in the image of God and given dominion over creation.

That's not arrogance or ego talking. No, that's Scripture. God gave us life and created a place filled with life over which we had authority. But instead of that existence being good enough, we wanted something new, something different, something we ourselves created so that we ourselves could gain the glory of having written our own story.

But friends, what are we writing in this way we're living? Far from the heroes of some tale so legendary our names will long live on in infamy long past our exist of this place, we're instead the miserable misaligned because of our many misunderstandings and misspent motivations. We're more the Greek tragedy than the comic book superhero.

Indeed, we've not only not saved the day but we've wasted most of them pretending we didn't need any kind of saving saved for that that we could offer unto ourselves.

Is that the story we really want to be living? This hollowed out hope built on gaining glory for ourselves knowing that we've done so little in the way of anything decent or worthwhile so far? Can we still not see that our mistakes are of both greater quantity as well as magnitude because of this attitude?

I can't count how many times I've wanted for a second chance to do something differently than how I'd done it or said it or seen it the first go around. I think most of us, if we were to be brutally honest could and would say the same. We've all felt the weight of hindsight and having to see the things we got so horrifically wrong. We've all yearned for a second chance, a fresh start, a clean slate.

Why? Because we cannot possibly be so diluted that we actually believe that we've not ever gotten anything wrong. We know better, because there's no way we can't know better. Because God saw to it that we'd know better. Because He knows better.

Reckon the question then becomes if we know better because He knows better because He wants better, then why ain't we better?

Well, I think we all know that one too.

But rather than puzzling out the obvious, I think we'd be better served worrying instead about figuring out where we go from where we are. We are broken. We are confused. We are entirely lost and hopelessly helpless. We're this great big pile of misplaced emotions and insane ideas and it's just time we decide if that's who and what we wish to remain or if we actually do want to be and see something better.

Because if indeed we do wish to be and see something better, well, we've got to be willing to do something different. Otherwise we'll just stay in place, still spinning our wheels pretending we're moving.

That's why all this lately about the death and rebirth we've been called into sharing through Christ and the humility only we can choose to embrace. It's the second chance we've all long wanted. It's the clean slate we all know we need. It's the ripping off of the door to this cell of insanity we've constructed around ourselves. It's His showing us that He's not as done with us as we'd like to be.

Friends, He's giving us the chance to change. It's the opportunity to reset through the renewal redeemed by the resurrection. It's the taking of us back from the world we've sold ourselves to in order to return to the One who made us in His image to be His people so that He could be our God. And all it takes, which granted is a lot for us to consider, is the willingness to stop seeing ourselves as gods.

Because that's exactly who we've been pretending to be. In all this living as if we've the right to write and rewrite, we've only built this Napoleon complex that's confused the reality in which we live. We're not of the authority nor the ability to author anything. We're but the clay, and honestly, now's probably the time to stop breaking ourselves to pieces hoping that in doing so we can somehow pull ourselves into something prettier.

We can't. Again, God made us in His image. He created us just how He wanted us, and friends, I pray we can all see and agree that what He wanted is entirely better than what we've come up with instead. We've chosen the path that's brought about guilt and regret, shame and pain, delusion and confusion. I just don't know how much longer we can pretend that it's all something different than what it is just because we want it to be something better than what it is.

I guess how long is up to each person to determine for themselves. But we ought to at least be considering what we're losing or missing or messing up in the meantime. What might we not be seeing considering all we care to see is what we think we see? What else could there be to life than the mess we've made of it?

We don't have to consider any of these things. But again, what are maybe missing by not considering them?

Considering we can see, at least hopefully, at least one mistake we've made, how can we debate or disregard the necessity of renewal? And if we can make our way into agreeing that we do indeed need something new, need to be something new, then how can we overlook or undervalue the gift of redemption? This offer to take us back, both from the world and to the beginning is a blessing of impossible worth.

But I guess it's only worth what someone thinks it's worth to them. As for me, I can't make it through a day without my head hitting the pillow with a hundred thoughts of all the things I got wrong in just that day. And so I know I need His constant revival because I know I'm killing myself within all the mistakes I'm making. Because I know I only know a few of them.

Can't begin to remember nor imagine the entirety of the monstrosity I've made over the years.

And yet, that's the beauty in our brokenness. It doesn't matter anymore. Or at least we've the opportunity to enter into a kind of love that says it doesn't matter anymore. In Christ God gives us the chance to hammer our pasts into the grave so that we can leave them behind us for good. And while the cost of that is the lives we've lived, as they're what we need to be left behind so that they don’t try to come along and muddy the up ahead, the reward of a blank slate and a blanket of compassion is the greatest bargain ever given.

I don't know who you are, where you are, where've been or what you've done to get to this point of hopefully reading this far, but know that the past, if you choose, is only allowed to remain upon you up until the foot of the cross. At that point, everything changed for whomever wants that kind of change. It's free, expect that it costs. It's a gift that deserves repayment in the form of appreciation.

But if we can just find a way to offer that gratitude, it will change our attitude. It will change our outlook. It will change our output. It will put out all that's been weighing us down so that we're free once more from the burdens we've built in the lives we've lived.

God wants better for us because He made us to be better. He created us in His image with hearts built to run on righteousness that inspires the humility to seek holiness. And while yes, we've definitely gone the other way, He sent the Way to lead us back along the way we shouldn't have the chance to find having gotten so lost within ourselves.

If you want something new, to be something new, I know where to find that bread. I know the well from which to drink. I know the difficulty in admitting just how parched and hungry you are. But, while it may hurt to admit we're dead in our sins and the lives they've made us live, God's truly the best at bringing dead things to life.

There's a whole bunch of new waiting for you to accept that you really do need it. Just open that door, just ask that question, just send up that prayer and let Him hear your heartfelt petition.

Because if you want to be something better just as He wants us to be something better, we've nothing to lose expect everything we already know we never needed in the first place.

Oh, and as for the answer to that question I asked up top, I’ve found the best possible way to answer who I am is to point to whose I am. Because if I were my own then I’d have to come up with some answer that I thought made sense. But since I belong to God, I’ll let Him answer.

And one of the best parts is that I don’t have to care if anyone else thinks it makes sense. Freedom my friends, it’s found in Him, not in us.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold