The cup on my desk says who I am…
Or at least it once did.
Years ago I had a job I loved.
I started the job with more than a few worries.
I’d never had a job anything like it.
I’d never even worked in the industry…
The first year was really tough…
But then one day I realized I loved the job.
Loved it more than any job I’d ever had….
I belonged in that job, I told myself.
I was made to do it.
It defined who I was…
My family even had my business card printed on a coffee mug…
If someone had asked “Who are You?”, I might have shown them the mug.
I left the company fifteen years ago.
Time… and the dishwasher….
Have erased the last vestiges of the job I once thought defined who I was.
This cup tells you who my granddaughter is…
She is a fan of Mickey Mouse.
I was tempted to buy the cup for her.
Then I took a closer look…
Kate is NOT her name.
If I ask my granddaughter, “Who are you?” she will never answer, “Kate!”.
For a moment I actually thought, “But she can’t read yet. She’ll never know.”
(Fortunately I walked out of the store without the cup, thereby escaping permanent enshrinement in the Grandparent Hall of Shame.)
“Who are You?”
It’s so easy to identify with superficial things, and then to buy more superficial things to remind us of who we think we are…
Monogrammed towels and shirts and coffee cups…
We do the same thing as Christians…
When people ask, “Who are you?” it’s easy for me to say, “I am a follower of Christ.”
I must confess, it’s easier for me to share my Christianity with a favorite Bible verse or a piece of jewelry than by changing how I live …
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:12-14
“Who are you?”
What is the one way for Christians to answer that question?
With love…
…’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Luke 10:27
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35
