Who Am I?

In the famous story of the burning bush, Moses asked, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" (Exo 3:11). After God made His covenant with David, he didn't respond, "It's about time someone saw my real value." He said, "Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?" (2 Sam 7:18). David, as a psalmist, wrote, "When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor" (Psa 8:3-5).

It seems like a question we don't much ask in our day. "Who am I? I'm the important one. I'm the one to be noticed. I am certainly the one that God should be taking care of." Which, I suspect, is one of the reasons that Paul warned us "not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment" (Rom 12:3). Our tendency is just that. We're important. God owes us. Where is He when I need Him?

The solution, of course, is to think soberly, as Paul puts it. David looked at the heavens and was stunned ... at his own true size. We are tiny. God told Israel, "It was not because you were more in number than any other people that YHWH set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples" (Deut 7:7). If we could get beyond this notion that we are so important that God is obligated to do nice things for us, then perhaps we'd begin to see with awe how absolutely amazing it is that He does anything for us. When the distance between what you actually deserve and what you've actually been given is that great, it cannot help but change your attitude. And that would lead to gratitude. Which, I'm afraid, is sadly lacking to some degree or another in all of us.