Who do you think you are?

It is Sunday morning and my intention of writing this blog  at the start of the weekend has slipped this week.    In a few hours I will be leading worship and bringing God's word at Yelvertoft Congregational Church.  The title of this post is the theme for that meeting.  It has been one of those developing thoughts over the last few days and still not perfectly formed in my mind.  But before I say any more about that, a word about the past week.

Christmas and New Year seemed to stretch this time and getting back in to a working routine has not been so easy.  One of the annual tasks for this part of the year is ensuring my personal financial records are in order and the tax return is done in time.  I am glad to say that is now completed and the return will go off to HMRC this week.  Looking through the records does two things for me.  Firstly it reminds me of various stepping stones through the past year - things achieved.  Expenses for the various aspects of ministry pass through my own bank account to be claimed retrospectively so printing out the records provides a trail of activities and answered prayers.

Secondly, it makes me thankful for God's faithful provision and personal care.  For many 2010 was a year of financial challenge and it looks as if 2011 might prove even worse for many.  Doreen and I continue to look to the Lord - not for abundance but enough for daily needs.  I rather like the thoughts behind Proverbs 30: 8(b) and 9.   It is about just having enough - and that should be enough for any of us.

Yesterday, as I drove to pick up June from one of the villages to take her to the local Torch Fellowship Group (a Christian gathering for people who are blind or with impaired vision) the Lord set some thoughts in my mind and I pondered on how I might present them to such a group.  June is quite elderly and without some assistance would not be able to make it to the meeting in Market Harborough.  Perhaps it wasn't strange that a speaker failed to turn up and I was invited to say something in her place!

Another task at this time of year is ensuring that various activities are firmly recorded ion my diary.  This year's challenge is to avoid overcrowding so that I can undertake the important piece of research on rural evangelism.  As I have been working on the diary and the accounts the week has also been punctuated with telephone, email and written communications expressing appreciation for the complimentary copies of the "Treasured Gospel Songs" CD.  It has been encouraging to know that it has been blessing people.  I now have a few orders for more copies, so more about that next week.

This Week's Activities
Sunday - morning at Yelvertoft and evening at Theddingworth
Tuesday - Gartree Prison
Thursday and Friday - part of a team planning a major international conference for 2013.  We are meeting at the venue which is Brunel University on the outskirts of west London.
Friday - I rush from Brunel to central London where there is a meeting with the rest of the team that has been working on a report for the Church of England on appropriate pastoral responses to those who have suffered sexual abuse.  This is part of follow up or ongoing work since I helped to write "Time for Action" for the members of "Churches Together in Britain and Ireland".

Back to "Who do you think you are?"
A sense of personal identity seems to be a prevailing issue at this time.  There is an intrinsic link to a sense of purpose or reason for being.  For some people this can almost be obsessive.  For others it is an important issue as they strive for an understanding of individual value and purpose within a life experience that has absorbed them as part of the world of other people (family or work etc).  Who we are cannot be seen in isolation from others, of course, so context is important.  For the Christian the most significant context is as part of the People of God.  In the OT we read how Moses and Esther both had a crisis of identity.  Moses because he had become subsumed by life in Pharoh's house and Esther absorbed into life in the palace of Ahasuerus.  Another OT character that comes to mind is Ruth who deliberately sets her personal identity with the people of God taking her place within the most important lineage in the world.

For Peter, in the NT, the crisis of identity takes a different position in the courtyard as the light of the fire and the sound of his voice give him away.  But it is an identity he refuses to own at that time; only to weep about it moments later.

It was at Antioch that those who were of "the Way" were first called "Christians".  Their identity was in the what they believed about the person of Jesus.  It is a nickname that is an enormous privilege to bear.

My thoughts on this topic turn to words of Paul, who had his own crisis of identity at the gates of Damascus.  He tells us that if anyone is in Christ he or she is a new creation.  That is we have a new identity.  We are no longer our own but are bought with a price.  Further we should be able to say that it is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me. (2Cor 5; 1Cor 6; Gal 2).  That is who we are!  Our identity is bound up completely with who Jesus is for we are part of God's life and work in our world today.  Once we have understood that and engaged with it we will know full well exactly who we are.