Gen 32:27 Then the man asked him, “What is your name?”

Before God can bless you, you need to, and He needs you to, know who you are!

So much of what we can achieve in this life depends on knowing who we are. OK, you say, that’s easy! I am Patrick Fann! Well, you asked what my name is… But, who you ARE is not just your name!

Jacob answered the Angel of the Lord “Jacob”, but the Angel then gave him a new name - told him, revealed to him, who he really was - and THEN blessed him. I’m repeating myself, but to really get IT right, you just have to know who you are!

I think this needs some explanation…

A long time ago I started asking God “what my name is”, and I wasn’t expecting a shallow, facetious answer. I really wanted to know who He had created, in me. I wanted to know this because this would give me the direction I needed to measure my responses to life’s situations. In fact, somehow I instinctively knew that tied up in my identity, who I really was, was the freedom to exist without the shackles of conforming to some "other's" idea of who I should be.

Every day we encounter life. It happens almost uncontrollably and for many of us we don’t really take too much notice of it while it does. Criminal! We have to be present in order to engage - intentional presence in each moment. Show up, awake and alert and with intention, engage whatever crosses your path. The “how” of this is tied up in who you are?

For instance, there is no point in trying to comfort and encourage the forlorn if this is not who you are. There is no point in trying to teach the inexperienced if you’re not the teacher. You might be a builder, or an analyst, or a recorder. But how you engage life certainly depends on WHO you are created to be. It is in this that there is blessing; the blessing of peace and joy and prosperity. Not prosperity in the commonly euro-centric accepted terms of great accumulations of wealth and riches, but in getting things right and succeeding in your daily task of life.

This brings me to the next and probably the real point of this discussion – knowing who you are allows you to define your CULTURE. Each of us has to be - yes, just HAS TO BE – a centre of a loving and inclusive culture; perhaps a "heavenly" culture. I would like to use the cliché “what would Jesus do” here, but it has been so soiled by lazy, half-hearted Christians that I shy away from it. But indeed, that’s what this is about.

Knowing who you are and what lies within you, gives you security, the comfort, to authentically express that small corner of creation that is you, without worry of rebuke or rejection (although they are likely associates at times) and generate around you an “aura” of attractive warmth to draw the oppressed, marginalised and broken-hearted into this culture. This culture is a living thing. Like yoghurt. Essential for the health of the world. God knows this.

So, as you start your days, purpose in your heart to develop the culture around you of who you are. Respond to life in compliance to your inherent character. This is serving up to the world the beauty of God’s creation in you. This is the essence of what many worldly sages have echoed over the ages in the words “be true to your self”.

Unleash your inner stellar self. Your blessing lies in discovering your identity!

19 June 2008