So in the middle of this sleepless night, I remembered that I actually have a blog that I just kind of forgot about for a few months, and decided to pay it a visit. I'm back! At least for now....
It's actually quite an interesting time for me to be blogging. I've just returned from being out of the country for nearly 3 months, and I'm still trying to get back to the routine of work, scehool, and church life that I'd left behind. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll pick it up again in quite the same way. A lot of things have changed, both within and without. I'm not sure things should be the same.
One thing I want to note here is a quote that somehow popped into my head as I was wrestling with a few thoughts trying to get to sleep. "Be who you are until you're different." If I'm not mistaken, the quote was initially directed at young trainees aspiring to achieve a certain level of spirituality, whether that entailed overcoming a certain weakness, being able to behave in a certain way, or something along those lines. I like to be reminded of the quote when these kinds of tendencies come around, but tonight I thought of it with a slightly different perspective. This perspective included only a consideration of the first part of the quote, "Be who you are...."
So the question is: who am I? I think this is something every person, believer or not, should ask themselves—and in an honest, sincere way. There's no sense in deceiving oneself, getting oneself to believe something that simply isn't the case. So really, who am I? Well, getting to the point (I don't know how much longer I'll be awake), up until about 5 years ago I was a certain person on the way to leading a certain kind of life that, in the end, would have amounted to nothing genuinely significant. Actually, though, I was a person chosen by God in eternity past to be a son of God and to participate in the carrying out of His heart's desire. I, of course, had no clue. Actually, I take that back—there were a few clues along the way. Anyways, in time I was called by Him—about 5 years ago—and would no longer be allowed to live the same kind of life I knew before. Now, many things have happened, and the Lord's desire is to go on in me, growing more and more intimate with me and discharging all the things that are in me that are not pleasing to Him, and adding His very self to me little by little to replace those other things.
So who am I? God? Not exactly, although I can't say today that I'm entirely just myself anymore either. I am a human being chosen by God to contain His very life, nature, and to express Him to a certain extent—components essential to the meaning of human existence. My destiny is to be one with God for eternity. "And those whom He predestinated, these He also called; and those whom He called; these He also justified; and those whom He justified; these He also glorified." (Romans 8:30)
So if this is who I am, it says a lot about who I am not. I won't make a list or get into specifics. I am not anything or anyone else. Since this is who I am, it doesn't make sense to think about being something else. It doesn't help to be political about it. I am a man of God!
