Philip Dampier's Blog

Who Am I?

That should be an easy question to answer but often it isn’t because we hide the truth of who we are. We might even hide the truth from ourselves. We can pretend for so long that we forget who we are. That may be James point in James 1:23, 24, “…he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” It is easy to change our behavior like a chameleon changes color. We put on a mask and pretend to be something we aren’t.

We can be like the church going lady in Robert Burns poem, To a Louse. It is one of my nephew’s favorite poems because of the truth it brings to mind. The poem tells the story of a proper lady in church who is well turned out. Her hair is well set and her bonnet is really something. Problem is, there is a louse roving around on the lady’s bonnet; and the louse spoils the perfect picture the lady is trying to portray. The closing stanza is well known as a teaching point for all our airs…

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us

An’ foolish notion:

What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,

An’ ev’n Devotion!

Jesus referred to that possibility in His comment on “whitewashed tombs.” He said they appeared beautiful but were actually filled with bones and uncleanness. In Matthew 23:28 he said, “So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

What do people see when they see us? At some point the mask must drop, the false paint fade, and the real us exposed. Can we see what others see? Can we remember what we looked like in the mirror?

If we acknowledge the Holy Spirit within us then we cannot hid who we really are. He penetrates to the very depths of our being and searches every secret thought. He is the mirror we should look at and we should look at it daily.

Task for Today: Don’t hide who you are from yourself. That is a terrible mistake to make since it is obvious that our sins will find us out. Nothing is hidden from God and we would be fools to try to hide something from God. Be honest with God, others and yourself.