Who Am I?

This is a question each of us is faced with in life. 

In fact, Who Am I? is such a prevalent question that it was even the title of todays sermon given in church. Hence, this blog.

Like it or not, our entire lives are built around this question.

Who Am I? Along with, who do others say that I am? 

We take all kinds of personality tests and self reflective analysis to get to "know" ourselves better. We try to pinpoint our gifts so that we can fulfill our God given purpose in life (assuming that we have one and are in some sort of pursuit to find it).

Today is my 24th birthday...Woohoo!!!

BUT... after the laughter & celebrations have subsided, when things have quieted down & I'm alone in my room at midnight, I'm left to ponder this question yet again...

Who Am I?

Who am I?  

When everything that I once found my identity in has suddenly been stripped from me.

Who am I? 

When I am surrounded by a people, language & culture that is different from anything I've ever known or understood.

Who am I? 

When things that once were easy have now become difficult tasks.

Who am I? 

When I left everything familiar to proclaim the goodness of the Gospel in a foreign country when I question its power in my own life.

I have no simple solution to this question...

Except that my prayer for this next year is that my identity would be found in Christ alone & that others would see Christ in me. 

I will leave you with this poem written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer whilst in prison before his execution for conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was a great thinker and writer whose work is still impacting us today. 

"Who am I?" -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I would step from my cell's confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country-house.

I would talk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

I would bear the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Or am I only what I know of myself?
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
trembling in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Who am I?" in Letters & Papers From Prison (New York: Touchstone, 1953/1997), 347-8.