Who Are You? — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

Back in 1980, the Time Magazine featured a story about Peter Sellers, the well-known English actor and comedian. And the article was about him. He appeared on the Muppet Show and was being interviewed by Kermit the Frog.

And it began with Kermit Kermit saying to Peter, now just relax and be yourself. And Peter Sellers said, I can’t be myself because I don’t know who I am. The real me doesn’t exist.

Now I suppose that Peter Sellers was trying to be funny, he was a comedian, as I said.

But on this particular occasion his words were anything but funny. In fact, I think they were rather sad, and one of his friends who saw the interview said, Poor Peter, the real Peter disappeared a long time ago. What he is now is simply an amalgamation of all the stage and screen characters he has ever played, and now he’s frantically trying to unsnarl that mess and find out who he really is.

Now I don’t know if Peter Sellers was ever able to unsnarl that mess. Just 6 months later, he died. Whether he did or not, I just want to say he wasn’t alone in the feelings that he had, and I’m convinced that many people go through life wondering who they are and what they’re supposed to be doing and where they’re heading.

A long time ago, David, King David wrote this beautiful Psalm from the Old Testament to Psalm 8.

And if you know this psalm, you can picture young David sitting on the hillside, probably outside of Bethlehem, looking up the moon and the stars, and his heart was just filled with praise for God, and he might have taken out his harp, and he began to sing, and some of the words of this song were: O Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens from the lips of children and infants. You have ordained praise. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars.

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Which you have set in place. What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him. You’ve made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour.

He continues in this psalm, Psalm 8. You made him, ruler over the works of your hand. You put everything under his feet. All flocks and herds, the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, all that swim in the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. That’s Psalm 8:1-9.

So as David looked up at the vastness of God’s universe, he felt, how small am I. So he asks God, what is man that you are mindful of him, that you care about him.

Well, it’s interesting to me to hear psychologists tell us there are two major crisis periods in life. One comes in adolescence and the other comes in middle age. And during the early teens, our bodies, of course, go through tremendous change. You know, you might have acne or your feet, seem awkward, your voice starts to change, and as part of the growing up process, we begin thinking about who we really are and what we’re doing with our life. Well, we call that adolescence.

And then adults face some of the same problems during middle age. And then we come across that thing called the midlife crisis, whatever that is. You see our bodies, as we get older, go through changes too. Our, our skin doesn’t have acne, but it loses its elasticity and develops wrinkles, you know, as you get older. And us men, we lose our hair, we often start fighting the battle of the bulge.

And so things that we used to be able to do, we no longer do. But one middle aged mother came to the conclusion there was not a lot of difference between some of her physical problems and and those of a teenage children. Take their own eyesight, for example. The teenage son would look in the fridge and had lots of food, he’d say there’s nothing to eat. And their daughter would look in the closet. I’ve got nothing to wear.

So there it is, the the thing about age, when we get to a certain age, things happen, milestones.

We can lose the battle. Decay is winning, as it were, but because we’re made by God, we have a destiny. We have a sense that God is in charge. God says to you, you are a special person. You are created in my image.

Let’s Pray

Thank you, Lord. This is so true. Help us, Father, to value who we are. We are made in your image. Amen.

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