Thoughts On: John 1:19-23

And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."

John 1:19-23, ESV

At sixteen I decided to make a list of who I was. When I became confused about my part in this world, I would write down pieces of me, hoping to make the anxiety go away. I wrote down many things, but the labels never took the worry with them. I still could not grasp who I was or what I wanted - it all seemed too much for me. 

At one point a wrote it down in round, teenage letters: “Sometimes, I wonder if anyone could possibly see the world in the same way I do. Other times, I beg God to make me more unique. I look around at people, and I see who they are. They are complex, and real; they have definitive personalities. All I want to do is figure out mine. Despite what the quotes might say, I have already been created. I don’t believe I can change the essential core of who I am, and I wouldn’t even if I could. All I know is that, if I use what I have been given, if I can figure out the puzzle that is me, I can be anything.”

It sounds sixteen, but I think I carried it much farther than my Junior Year of High School: 

Who am I?

As I read through John’s answers to these same questions, his declarations confused me. He didn’t answer with who he was. Instead, “he confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’” And there it is, the question we should be asking:

Who am I not?

I used to use my words to figure out who I was. But here, with this project, I’m changing my mind. Maybe my words are to be used to find out who God is. And maybe that will give me the answer I’ve been searching for all my life. It starts with a confession: I am not God. I am not someone famous, waiting to emerge. I am not in charge.

John does answer the question of who he is, but only after he has declared who he is not. He says his job simply and with clarity: He lives to make a way for the Lord. We could take a page from John’s book, I think. Let’s begin be answering who we aren’t, and who God is. Maybe, just maybe, it will lead us to who are meant to be.