“Who are you and what have you done with the man I thought I knew?”
I’ve asked this question to the man I see in the mirror often over the past decade.
It has become for me, as much a statement as it is a question, and it’s one that is reflected in the mirrors of so many people I sit with and talk to. That question of who we are that translates from a feeling, a deep seated longing to fully know oneself.
The reality that we struggle with, understanding and knowing the person in the mirror, is to fully know oneself. It is the great quest of our lives, to discover who we are in relation to the one who designed and created us.
David, King of Israel, a warrior and song writer, understood the necessity of being known by his creator. He writes in one of his Psalms (139:23):
"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!"
When you want to know yourself, to really understand who you are, like David, we need to look to God. He created us, designed us and built us to be known by Him. Think of it, the one who created you didn't design you and put you on this earth to figure things out by yourself, figuring out who you are and what your purpose and the meaning of your life is in solitude. No, He designed this process to be done in community. Most importantly, He designed it to be done with Him.
David begins his Psalm:
"O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways."
He is a God who sees us, knows and experiences us. It is more than a knowledge of our being, it is an intimate understanding - a wisdom that reflects this incredibly rich and wondrous love that God has for each one of us.
This living experience from day to day. Breathing from moment to moment. It's all intended to be done with Him not just near us, but intimately connected to us like a vine and a branch, like a deeply loved wife and her husband.
This happens when we live into being with Him. It leads us to finding the self, not just the person in the mirror, but the very human being we were meant to be in relationship with God.
Here's the kicker. We want to find other ways to discover who we are without God. We want to stretch what we think is independence and a feeling of self-development. What we struggle to understand is that the so-called independence and self-development we seek are just worldly illusions. That doesn't stop us. If we can't find ourselves in the illusion of this self-indulgent independence, we will search ourselves out in other people. We cling to others in hopes that they will somehow, magically, show us who we are and what we are about - that meaning and purpose that we long for as much as being intimately known.
What we come to discover after running from one disappointment to the next is that, really, the only one who can point us to who we are and what we are supposed to be about is the one who made us.
The God who created you, designed you and prepared you for the life that he intended for you, intimately knows you inside and out - and He wants to connect you with the person in the mirror. You know, the one you're looking for and trying to figure out. God wants to introduce you. He wants you to see who he sees in you. The real you. Not the one you dress up to go to work or the date. The real you.
We look to Him to show us, guide, to lead us:
"...lead me in the way everlasting!"
To know the one in the mirror is to be known by, and experience the one who designed and made you.
As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians:
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
So let Him introduce you to the person in the mirror. Open yourself up to being dependent on the process that He has for you. Live in the experience of being intimately known by Him and experience His grace and love.