Who I am

Can we be significant? Lost in the vastness of astronomical space and geological time, can we as individuals have significance? What is man? What is woman? How many answers have been given to this question? I'm a supreme product of the evolutionary process, the master of my fate, the captain of my soul. I'm the great technologist, the manipulator of the world. I'm a product of time, plus matter, plus chance; if you boil me down I'm just a few dollars worth of chemicals. I'm the greatest murderer the world has ever seen. I'm acting out my DNA, but who wrote the code? I'm the result of dividing a crowd of a million by a million. I'm a creature trapped and tormented by desire, caught in an endless cycle of reincarnations. I'm a passing shadow. Like a drowning person I put my head above the ocean waves of time for a few moments, and then disappear forever. What is a man? What is a woman? What is a human being? What is our significance as human beings?

Rev. Howard Peskett on Psalm 8

I heard these rather provocative questions raised ever so eloquently at at a talk I attended some time ago, and it made me think about the ways in which people answer this most fundamental of questions. Who are you? Who am I? What am I? I think it's fair to say that how we answer this question greatly affects the way in which we live our lives.

Roughly a month after I had heard this talk, I came across this sign outside Orchard Road Presbyterian Church and it made me smile.

GOD IS THE REAL POTTER,
NOT HARRY.

We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Isaiah 64:8

And I was reminded of this song, one that speaks to the deepest reaches of my heart.

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
would care to know my name
would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
would choose to light the way
for my ever wandering heart?

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin
would look on me with love and watch me rise again?
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
would call out through the rain
and calm the storm in me?

Not because of who I am
but because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
but because of who You are

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapour in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours