Thought for Today
Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
1 Kings 3:7 And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in . . . 9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?"
Luke 11:9 "So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Lord, give me the knowledge to know who I am and what I need. Amen.” (These Days, July 21, 2026)
So many questions come to mind. “Who am I?” “If I ask, search and/or knock, will I truly receive/find/encounter an open door?” “Upon which door should I knock, #1, #2 or #3?” Or, maybe the most important question, “Whose am i?”
The Bible does tell us a great deal about our Creator God. “Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” sets the stage. God is the Creator of Creation. All that exists is the handiwork of God. God’s self-revelation to Moses explains that God is simply “The One who is.” And, as those late-night pitchmen on television love to tell us as they pitch knives and other products, “WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!” The Bible tells us that our Creator God loves God’s creation, “John 3:16 For God so loved the world . . .” So far, so good.
For me, the psalmist articulates the ultimate question, “8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”
How do I put all of these verses together to understand who I am and how I relate to my Creator? I have prayed that prayer above in various forms all my life. I have asked God to help me understand myself, my place and position in Creation and to equip me to deal with it all. I have, at least secretly, hoped to hear a literal voice from heaven telling me what to do. I have imagined God altering the stars in the heavens to spell out specific instructions (maybe even to have the lights blinking on and off like neon signs). Nothing so far. Although, having taken enough courses in physics, I cannot imagine the gravitational disruption throughout the universe were God to do so.
I’m not sure when I first sang the hymn Hear I Am, Lord. It is based on Isaiah 6:8-9. The hymn was written in 1981, and I must have first sung it soon afterward. By that point in my life, I had offered my prayers for my own knowledge about who I am many times.
I believe God does answer our prayers. Sometimes the answers are overt and obvious. Sometimes the answers are subtle. Sometimes they are challenging. My human preference is for the overt and obvious. Then, I am not forced to think or ponder, merely to obey. Overt or subtle, easy or challenging, God has always answered. Sometimes with what I hoped to hear; sometimes with what I wanted to hear; sometimes with what I feared to hear. Irrespective of my hope or fears about the answers, God has always answered and God has always responded with what I actually need.
One of the most often heard and repeated lines in seminaries is, “God does not call the equipped; God equips the called.” There is great truth in that line. It is a great corollary to Jesus’ words above from Luke, especially “everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
God has made us a little lower than God, and crowned us with glory and honor. God does equip us to do whatever God calls us to do. We just need to always be more attentive to God’s calling and to respond as did Isaiah.
Listen for God’s call, respond in the affirmative, trust God,
Pastor Ray