Eye-dentity in the Hurricane of Task

Continuing in my reading of The Message of Hope with the folks at Gethsemane, I wrote a reflection for our Facebook group on Friday that now has an interesting bookend with the one I wrote today:

From Friday, April 27:
Read today where Peter says he's ready to die with Jesus, but a few verses later he can't even stay awake with him. I'm hearing in that a caution not to over promise, either to God or to myself, things I may not be able to follow through on. I'm not Jesus, I'm not even Superman, and thankfully one Messiah turns out to be quite sufficient for the world. I think this is also why I like the story of the loaves and fishes... where the little boy offers up what little he has to feed the thousands. Sometimes I feel like all I've got to offer is a loaf and a fish, but that's okay. My job is just to offer what I've got. It's up to Jesus to multiply it and make it into enough.Read today where Peter says he's ready to die with Jesus, but a few verses later he can't even stay awake with him. I'm hearing in that a caution not to over promise, either to God or to myself, things I may not be able to follow through on. I'm not Jesus, I'm not even Superman, and thankfully one Messiah turns out to be quite sufficient for the world. I think this is also why I like the story of the loaves and fishes... where the little boy offers up what little he has to feed the thousands. Sometimes I feel like all I've got to offer is a loaf and a fish, but that's okay. My job is just to offer what I've got. It's up to Jesus to multiply it and make it into enough.

From Monday, April 30:
In my post on Friday I was connecting with a "who I am not" idea: I am not the Messiah, not even Superman. Today I was struck by the exchange between Jesus and Pilate in Mark 14 (top of p. 64). "Are you the Messiah...?" Pilate asks; "Yes, I am..." Jesus replies. That's a "who I am" moment, very different from the "who I am not" perspective from Friday. I think both ways are useful in dealing with difficult situations, but it strikes me that the "who I am not" approach is kind of like playing defense. In response to external challenges and demands that feel too much for me, I push back against unreasonable expectations. But the "who I am" approach is more like offense. I take the initiative by claiming a clear identity that external challenges can't begin to threaten. In the first, my attention is "out there" but in the second, it's "in here." Rather than starting out in the challenging, task-and-demand-filled world and then retreating into myself for safety and to do what I can, I can start in the security of who the Lord tells me I am, and then move out from there into the world to be who I am.

So. Who am I? I am a Son of the King. Nothing can change that. Regardless of what I do or don't get done today, that is who I get to be. That's the calm in the storm; the eye of identity in the hurricane of task.