I Am What I Am

Living in a society in which magazines on every news stand declare that what we are is not enough, it is sometimes hard to know just who and what we are. We are told how to be thin, how to have silky hair, how to dress, what we should be reading, what our house should look like, how to spend our money, how to speak in public .. the list goes on. The person society values most is unattainable and yet the struggle goes on. The focus is on what people see but not necessarily on who we are. 

I think the Psalmist got it right when he wrote:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:14 (NIV)

Popeye was known to say "I 'yams whats I ams, and dats all that I 'yams". 

It is, perhaps, better said by John Newton when he said:"I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am."

The focus here being not what one beholds with the eye but rather what one feels with the heart. So though I am not what I ought or want or hope to be, I am what I am and my struggle is how to develop inner qualities that can help me to enhance life for those around me, for example:

Don't forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.  - Hebrews 13:2

or

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Enough said?  I think so.