Who Am I...Really?

COMMENTS

Human beings are pretty complex.  Different people can meet the same person under different circumstances and come away with completely different ideas about what he or she is really like.  Even when the same two people are interacting, sometimes one (or both) of them will be “different” than they usually are.  I’m talking about what we would consider basic personality traits—kind, mean, considerate, selfish, grumpy, etc.  It made me ask the question that would ultimately come to anyone’s mind:  Who am I…really? 

NOTES

I was thinking of a couple of people that I met and interacted with for a while.  One had some personality traits that could be—I hate to say it—annoying.  That one was a bit “high maintenance”.  The other was undemanding and, in general, easier to deal with.  That’s what you noticed at first glance; but when their circumstances were stressful, what you saw was different.  In that place, the high-maintenance one was unselfish and loving.  The easy-going one was actually difficult and, at times, unkind.

Who were they, really?  Do stress and age and difficulty change who we are?  Or do they reveal who we are?  Do we mask the “real” person with the opposite—the “who we want to be”—until stress takes over?  Or are we actually both persons?  If I am, indeed, both, how do I ensure that the desirable one is the one revealed in my old age or in those difficult times?  The thought is frightening.  I want to be loving, kind, considerate, and unselfish.  Will I be that?  Or will I be demanding and self-absorbed?

They say that the real you is exposed when you’re at the end of your rope.  I’m starting to believe that, if I’m different in those circumstances, it’s not the “real” me that’s revealed but the “other” me.  The fallen me is that demanding and self-absorbed person; but the redeemed me is like Him:  loving, kind, considerate, and unselfish.

The question is not “Who am I, really?”  The question is whether I will, in the power of the Spirit, exhibit the identity I have in Him.  If I will do that, I need not fear showing who I am.