I Am – or am I?

Part of my Bible reading commitment for 2012 is reading through the bible at least twice.  I decided to do that by following two different daily reading-through-the-bible plans.  One is an Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs daily reading plan and the other is a Chronological daily plan that will go through the bible in a year.

Within a few days of each other both plans came to the Exodus passage where God confronts Moses and tells him that when people ask who sent him, he is to tell them “I am who I am” (or I am that I am in another translation).

That made me do some thinking about the idea that it is God who is “I am.”

So, what exactly am I saying when I claim something like “I am not going to do that!” or “I am not going to go there!”?  I heard a friend not long ago state, “I am a lifetime youth pastor, and will never be anything but that.”  Now, that may be true, but it got me to wondering if I have the right to say that kind of thing.  If I am a servant of God, am I not putting myself in the place of God making a statement like that?  Could it be that the “I am” is my saying that I want to be the Lord of my life, that I might not be open to what God has in store for me?  Might that in fact be a kind of idolatry on my part?

It is one thing to say “I am a child of God” and quite another thing to say “I am never going to accept a call to pastor a church in Hawaii!” (Not that I would ever say that exactly – but substitute “downtown Toronto” or “Fort McMurray” or “out in the middle of nowhere Saskatchewan” or some not-so-friendly foreign nation, and you might be closer to the truth.)  When I make that kind of statement, then I am saying in effect that I am choosing to be the God over my life and my life’s direction.  And that would be plain and clear idolatry – putting anyone or anything in God rightful place.

My task, I realize, is to let the real “I AM” be my “I am.”