MISTAKEN IDENTITY
Somewhere along the road of life, we have learned to move forward by way of goals. I look around Starbucks and see goals being talked about and goals being pursed. The girl to my right highlights her text books and study materials – her goal…to get some where, and the dream to be someone. To my left are two girls who are in a tutoring session; one older girl tutoring a younger. What is the goal? Is the goal to help? To offer? But as girls do, they are talking about everything except “math.”
But what of these goals Lord? What of these self plans of ours? What of these “lights at the end of the tunnel” dreams? To the writer of Ecclesiastes our goals are nothing. Life changes so much. Thoughts bombard us with instant gratification offers. How does one weed through the noise?
This is the picture I glean from when reading the “Calling of The First Disciples”. John and Andrew spent much time with John the Baptist before Jesus arrived on the scene. Did they have minds filled with goals? Did they have life plans that would be forever changed that one hot afternoon? Then one day John points out this guy and describes him as “life” and the “Lamb of God”. What does that mean for them? What does that definition of life mean for John and Andrew? That day life would cease to be about the next and be about experiencing life in the present. How much do I live my life for the next, the goal, for my agenda?
The day that John the Baptist announced the passing of Jesus, the Lamb of God, life for these men would radically be experienced, looked at, tasted, and be thought about differently. I think about that day and welcome that same passing in my life. Maybe John and Andrew were in the midst of day dreaming about life’s future with Jesus while following close behind him. This would be life living not life obtaining the next.
When Jesus spoke it scratched the record on their day dreaming,
“uh what? Oh uh where are you staying?” With that unsure, what just happened tone of voice.
I mean what else do you ask the Lord of hosts, the king of kings, you know…God’s son? So Jesus invited them to be present. Funny how the first thing Jesus did was answer their first question. “So they went and saw where Jesus was staying.” This is a great example of how Jesus really doses meet us where we are.
From then on Jesus would transform their lives to be Mistaken Identities. I feel like I miss the point when I just stick to my goals. I am trying to think about the work week 2000 years ago. Did people work 80 hour weeks? Did people always try and do what ever it took to get a head? Was money always the end goal? Maybe for some, but that shows how we are never far off from resembling the people of old. Jesus was always about relationship. His goal was always about revealing the Father. His goals were the Father. I have to think that my goals and life should resemble that same thinking. I have to ask myself the questions are my goals to reveal the Father? Are my goals relationship? Do I coast on the coat-tails of others relationships with Christ? Is my brokenness freed up in me to be passed on to others? Do I embrace my weaknesses so that God’s grace is broken bread passed out through me by encouragement or hope? Follow the ways of Jesus and life changes, meaning changes, goals, desires, dreams, perspective, fears and experience change.
I want my life to be mistaken identity for Him. I want people to know something is different about me, or that I have been with Him. My prayer is comes from John 1:3, “Through him all things are made. Without him nothing is made that has been made.” This verse includes me. I am made through him. All my hopes, dreams, passions, and desires come in to being through my maker. Without him nothing is made. That includes life.
Jeremiah 9:24
“But let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, righteousness, and justice on earth.”
this was some tasty chicken.
i’m just sayin.