Identity: God's and Your's

Now the Israelites’ cries of injustice have reached me. I’ve seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them. So get going. I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.
   But Moses said to God, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
   God said, “I’ll be with you. And this will show you that I’m the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on the mountain.”
   But Moses said to God, “If I now come to the Israelites and sat to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they are going to ask me, ‘What’s this God’s name?’ What am I supposed to say to them?”
   God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me.
-Exodus 3:9-15 (CEB)

Picture: Pixabay
Do you have an identity?  I mean a way that you identify yourself.  We might say that we are a self-identified _____.

Moses did not identify himself as a deliverer or even as a leader.  He was just a shepherd, had a family, and lived among a group of people.  In the very distant past, he was in Egypt and had a sort of career and lifestyle that did not work out.

When Moses is confronted by God and called, he asks, "Who am I?"  We might ask the same question.  Perhaps our identity puts us at odds with others and we don't know how that opposition will work out.
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Moses is perhaps coming from a place of humility when he asks, "Who am I?"  God is restoring him to his calling that did not work out and that Moses had probably given up on.  Instead of saying, "What took you so long?", or, "You bet I'm your man", Moses says, in a sense, "Who me?"

I reluctant leader is better than someone with a puffed up idea of themselves.

I don't see God coddling Moses and explaining how he is the one to lead, to go, to confront Pharaoh.  What God does say is, "I will be with you".  Your identity will come from God being with you.

That is the key to your identity.  Wherever you have come from, whatever your weaknesses, struggles, or disqualifying traits; your identity is that God is with you.  We get too wrapped up in or tied down with notions of this or that being our identity, and so we say we can't be with these people and those people are opposed to us.

Like Moses, we might say and others might say of us, that we are  not qualified.  But, God's says, "I will be with you".  Imagine being 'qualified', but not having God with you.

So, I think that we get too caught up in identity that is outside of just being God's vessel.  Only God qualifies and disqualifies, ordains and denies.  We need to view others with a spiritual point of view, instead of a worldly perspective (2 Cor. 5:16).

"Who am I?", is the wrong question.  The real issue, is, "Is God with you?"  And I don't mean, "God on our side."  I do mean, "Are you coming in your 'sent-ness' by God?"

The better question is, "Who is this God?"  Is God your idea, your explanation, or your 'teaching'?  Or is this God, the living, being, real God who is.  Not, 'was' or 'will be'; but is.

God is "I Am" because God is being, God is, and God is active.  This is especially important to realize in situations where we have suffered long, and where we assume things will never change and will stay crooked.  It is not true, because of God; who is "I Am".

God is always alive, always actively involved and knowing what is going on, and always attentive.  God today is the same God who did things in the past.  God does not change and is the same as when he was faithful in the past.

There is no special dispensation of unfaithfulness.

Every day is a new day and a day of possibilities.  Even if or when it does not happen, God is active.  God's loving, compassionate mercy is always alive and active.

We are broken failures like Moses, but God is that God is, and God is faithful.  Some have given up and believe that bondage is permanent, but God is getting ready to deliver.

The story of God is that God is active and relentlessly alive.  God is always working, being, living; and caring for us.  We can turn away from God, close our eyes, ears, and minds; distract ourselves, delude, and deceive ourselves with things that are not true about God.

But, God is always there, always here, always near.  How close we are to God is our choice.  The cultivation of the relationship is our choice.

God is a living person, the I Am.  God is alive.

Your identity is wrapped up in God.  Each of us have personalities, talents, gifts, and destinies that differ.  But God is the same to each one of us as Father.


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