Who
am I, and why am I here? These are questions that human beings have been asking
themselves probably ever since God first said, “Let us make humans in our image.”
Who am I? What’s my identity? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in this life?
When
I was a child, my identity was pretty simple: my name, my address, and my
position in my family. Markel Jay Isham, Route One Box
Something-I-can’t-remember-now, Comanche, Texas, 76442, the youngest child of
Edward and Lorraine Isham. My purpose? Eat, play, sleep, stay out of the way, clean
my room, and act nice. Come to think of it, that’s pretty good advice for a
middle-aged man, too. But we’ll come back to middle age later.
The
church I grew up in played a huge role in the early development of my faith
identity as a Christian. Some of you have heard of the Free Will Baptist
Church, but for those who have not, it is a small, southern denomination that
looks much like the Southern Baptist church in practice, but is more like the
old timey Methodists in doctrine except for the facts that Free Will Baptists
baptize only by immersion only those who are old enough to profess their faith
in Christ, and they practice the tradition of feet washing every time they have
communion…which is only a few times a year, at most. In my childhood, women
never wore pants to church, and sadly the denomination still doesn’t ordain women
for the ministry or as deacons. Nevertheless, I owe much of my personal
knowledge of Christ to saintly Free Will Baptist women like Dess Gosset and
Dovey Bradshaw and Granny Hughes, who had a stick of Doublemint gum for me
every Sunday morning. I’ve no doubt they are all part of that great cloud of
witnesses we talked about in the time for all God’s children, along with men
like Ted Patton and Ellis Morphew, who used to make all us kids stand up and
sing “Love Lifted Me” while he directed with those old-school hand signs for
each note on the scale.
In
adolescence, especially in high school, my identity began to take on more
definition. I was a nerd; all my teachers liked me, and even though I didn’t
study nearly as hard as I could or should have, I made good grades. I played
the saxophone in the concert band and the jazz band, and the xylophone in the
marching band. I was active in the drama club—no surprise there. And I was one
of those Christian kids. Well, most kids in my small town Texas high school called
themselves Christian; those who didn’t were the ones who stood out. Comanche,
Texas is, after all, pretty much the buckle of the Bible Belt. Doing well in
school, winning band awards, staying out of trouble, not getting fired from my
part-time job, and going to church three times a week were pretty much my only
purposes in those years.
All
that changed once I entered college. I lived at home and commuted for the first
two years, so my life wasn’t much different from my high school years. But
after I transferred and started attending another college, where I lived in the
dormitory, I started to emerge more as my own person. I began to see myself
more independently. My major—speech and English education—added a lot to my
identity. I began to see myself as a teacher. From a psychological perspective,
I adopted the terms I learned from various assessment instruments I took in
college classes, especially the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI. Some of
you are familiar with it, so without going into much detail, it means that I am
energized by being with people; that I take in information on an intuitive or
gut level; I process that information on an emotional level, thinking about how
it makes me and others feel; and I prefer to be open-ended, to go with the
flow, to have flexible rather than rigid plans. Another popular instrument
identified me as an Artistic-Social type. What does all that mean in common
terms? I’m one of those flighty creative types who likes to work with other
people in an artistic setting, and I don’t care much for bureaucracy, rules,
and regulations. Needless to say, being a Presbyterian has sometimes been a
real challenge for me.
My
faith identity during those years was strongly influenced by my sojourn as an
English teacher in South Korea. I spent more than eight years there, and they
were some of the best and most memorable years of my life. My faith practice
was no match for the dedication and zeal displayed by my Korean brothers and
sisters in Christ. Let me tell you, if ever you need a prayer warrior on your
side, call a Korean. They strongly believe in the power of prayer.
My
life’s purpose began to take on more definition during that time, too. I strove
to develop my career as an educator, investing time and money in graduate
school and participating in professional organizations. I also sought to do
work that was meaningful to me. And I looked at ways I could serve the Lord
using the gifts and talents that I felt I had been given. I’ve always enjoyed
speaking and performing and singing and writing, and I continue to look for
ways to utilize those gifts. Thus I stand before you today.
Then
along came middle age, that time when I began to reflect on all I had seen and
done and wonder, Is this all there is? Should I have taken a different route?
Is this really what I want to do and who I want to be for the next twenty or
thirty years, or the rest of my life? My professional identity began to expand.
I saw myself more in light of my skills and experiences than my job titles, and
the verbs became more important to me than the nouns: teaching, training,
speaking, advising and counseling, acting, performing, writing. Creating.
Facilitating. Informing, inspiring, and entertaining.
My
faith identity has changed in my middle age years, too. I don’t want to be just
a practitioner of a religion based mostly on two thousand years of church
history, doctrine, and tradition, but rather one who emulates the person of
Jesus as best as I know Him through scriptures and other historical documents,
through the lives of others who have followed His Way, and through the
teachings and prompts of the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart. For me,
imitating Jesus is the best way to connect with my Creator.
This
different outlook on my faith identity affected how I defined my purpose. Now I
seek to use the gifts and talents that I know in my heart I possess, and to
refrain from trying to be anything to anybody any time. That’s hard for me to do
because I’m a person who has an immense need to be liked, so saying “no” is
incredibly difficult for me. The result has been that I have often found myself
in roles and positions that created a lot of stress and anxiety because of the
mismatch. Sure, God equips those whom God calls. And of course, we can do all
things through Christ who strengthens us. But God doesn’t call one individual
to do all things. It’s important for each of us to get acquainted with
ourselves and come to know what it is we do best, what energizes us and makes
our hearts feel glad, and to invest those parts of ourselves into the building
of Christ’s realm. When we built the Celebration Center, we didn’t hire
electricians to do carpenters’ work, nor did we hire carpet layers to install
the plumbing. Each person involved in the construction of that facility had his
or her area of expertise to contribute, and so do we.
The
Psalmist who wrote number 139 knew that he or she was known by God even before
birth and was fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139 has been a source of
great inspiration and comfort to me ever since I first discovered it right
after college. It tells me that I am special and unique, that I am not an
accident, and that I am who I am as God made me…or as the modern-day psalmist Stefani
Germanotta—otherwise known as Lady Gaga—puts it, “Baby, I was born this way.”
According
to the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau, an estimated 108 billion people
have ever lived on the earth, including us. That’s 108 billion unique
individuals that God knew in the womb. No two of us has ever been completely
alike. Even identical twins, formed from the division of one fertilized egg,
are not one hundred percent alike. One hundred eight billion unique, special,
one-of-a-kind souls. And God knew and knows each one of us intimately, down to
the very number of hairs on—or not on—our heads.
With
each of these individual identities throughout the ages seeking his own
self-serving interests, it’s a wonder we haven’t already caused our own
extinction from this planet. But God loved these billions and billions of souls
so much that God sent a unifying force among us to give us unity in our
individuality, and that is the Spirit of Christ exemplified in the life of
God’s own Son Jesus. The writer of the first epistle to the church in Corinth
about two thousand years ago understood this early concept of e pluribus unum, or “from many we are
one.” Using the metaphor of the human body—probably the only thing that every
human being can personally relate to—he or she wrote that while a body has many
parts, and each part has its special or unique role to play, the body functions
as one unit. So, too, do we followers of the Christ Way exhibit individual
identities comprised of an infinite range of gifts and talents and attributes
that all fit snugly into the great jigsaw puzzle that is the Body of Christ
reflecting God’s unfathomable love for the world.
In
order for a human body to function in a healthy way, each part has to do its
work well without interfering in the work of other parts. Can you imagine what
would happen if my gall bladder tried to pump my blood, or my kidney tried to
breathe for me? The gall bladder and kidney need to know what they do best and
do that as best they can. And we, too, need to know ourselves well so we can do
what we do best as well as we can and leave the other work for the other parts
to do.
Sometimes
we know in our hearts what our gifts and talents are because we’re drawn to
certain activities. From a very young age I enjoyed playing imaginary
role-playing games. In fact, we used to use the phrase “play like” a lot:
“Let’s play like we’re pirates on a ship,” or “Let’s play like we’re exploring
a volcano on a tropical island.” This led me to drama club in high school and
college and a minor in theater and participating in Cornerstone productions
here at church. I liked singing in church when I was a child, so one day when I
was about five years old, my mother gave me a hymnal, showed me the song “Every
day with Jesus,” and told me I was going to sing it at church all by myself.
And I did, without wetting my pants in front of everybody. In elementary school
I wrote fanciful stories, and in college I won creative writing awards. I
enjoyed informative speaking and helping people learn new things, so I became a
teacher.
Other
times, though, we have to try and fail in order to know what gifts and talents
we don’t possess. In elementary school I tried sports; it was not a pretty
sight. In high school I was in student government; not my cup of tea. In
college I changed my major from journalism to speech communications because
questioning people to get a lead on a story was too confrontational for me.
Through the years I have learned that leadership, governance, and
administration are definitely not my gifts, and any activity that involves
confrontation and disharmony makes me feel extremely anxious. At work I
realized that sitting behind a desk and talking to people one on one all day
long about the problems they were having in school was destroying my soul as
well as my health, so I resigned and went back to teaching. Take it from me,
trying to be something that you’re not is like trying to fit a square peg in a
round hole. That’s just not going to do anybody any good.
As
our gifts, talents, and other strengths help define us, so too do our
challenges and weaknesses. I think that’s just a part of God’s plan to keep us
humble and to show God’s grace and strength through us. Paul called his
struggles his “thorn in the flesh.” One of mine is a lifelong mild anxiety
disorder that rears its ugly head any time I experience confrontation or
disharmony or feel overwhelmed by the demands other people place on me. Another
is a struggle with boredom; it comes too easily for me because I abhor
repetition and monotony. I’d like to say that’s because I have a brilliantly
active mind that craves constant stimulation, but I’m sure a psychologist would
have a different explanation that’s less flattering.
After
more than half a century of life, I am still getting to know myself and
figuring out what my purpose is in this world. It’s all a journey, and I
suspect that it might continue in one way or another even after we go on to
join that great cloud of witnesses to be with God in Christ. But maybe the
journey is the whole point. In fact, when you think you have arrived at your
life’s destination, you often realize your journey has really just begun…or that
a new journey is beginning. When I was a young adult, I thought I knew
everything; now I am painfully aware of how ignorant I am. Once upon a time I
thought I had all the answers; now my head is full of endless questions. Maybe
that’s God’s plan, for me to keep seeking, wondering, exploring, learning,
growing, and becoming the best me that I can be.
I
hope you spend some time getting to know yourself better, understanding what
your gifts and talents and best attributes are, and what your challenges and
weaknesses are, too…because all of that is what makes you fearfully and
wonderfully made; made for God’s purposes in the body of Christ.
