1. WHO AM I? BY CHANTAL KLINGBEIL
2018 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY OF PRAYER

2. Who Am I? WARM UP ACTIVITY
In three minutes (jot down on a piece of paper) answer the following question as completely as possible: Who Am I?

3. Who Am I? (II) Cross off the following in your description …
Name (Sue Brown)
Nationality, origin or location (from Canada, lived here all my life, originally from London)
Function or work (I work at a daycare center, I’m an assistant, I’m a stay-at-home mother)
Jobs and relationships (I am a nuclear scientist, mother and aunt, I’m single)
What is left of your identity?

4. Who Am I? (III)
Crucial periods of crises in our lives where we will be challenged to look again at who we are…
Adolescence
Mid-life crisis
Retirement
In between these moments of crisis we often loose ourselves in our roles.
We may work ourselves to a burnout in an attempt to prove our worth.
We may become too attached to our roles and refuse to change them for fear that we will have no value.

5. Who Am I? (IV) DANGERS We may lose God.
We may lose our most important family relations.
We may lose ourselves.

6. Who Am I? (V) Without really knowing who we are…
We may become frustrated and disillusioned.
We may not become the biblical ideal of a godly senior person.
“Those who are planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; They shall be fresh and flourishing.”
Psalm 92:13-14

7. Who Am I? We may become strangers to our children.
We may live parallel lives as spouses.
And we may begin to ask: Who am I? What have I done (or am I doing) with my life?

8. “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Who Am I? (VI)
Biblical advice
“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Psalm 90:12

9. True wisdom begins with the knowledge of who we really are.
We are not a role or a function, but much more
We are beings created by the Master of the universe in His image.

10. Case Study I How would you have felt as… A beloved and spoiled child
A slave
An object of sexual desire
The prime minister of the most powerful country of its time

11. These are conflicting roles and identities, but Joseph lived them all.
Let’s read them: Genesis 37:2-5 (favored son); 37:28 (slave); 39:1-5 (favored slave); 39:20 (prisoner) 39:21-23 (favored prisoner); 41: (prime minister); 41:44-46 (favored prime minister).

12. Case Study II
How could he survive these dramatic role changes? Secret: A decision taken at the beginning of his journey to Egypt.

13. Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 214
“His soul thrilled with the high resolve to prove himself true to God—under all circumstances to act as became a subject of the King of heaven. He would serve the Lord with undivided heart; he would meet the trials of his lot with fortitude and perform every duty with fidelity.”
Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 214

14. Case Study III
Joseph grew in his commitment to God. The Joseph who was sold in Canaan was not the same who replied to the open invitation of Potiphar’s wife with “How could I do this?

15. “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God
“How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9)
“If we were to cherish an habitual impression that God sees and hears all that we do and say and keeps a faithful record of our words and actions, and that we must meet it all, we would fear to sin” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 217).
We would practice the presence of God.

16. Case Study IV How can this concept help me to know who I am?
Once I have chosen to be a child of God, I belong to him, never mind the function or role that I am playing.
I can personally “claim” the divine love—Jesus died for me personally.
It is not something that happened a long time ago, but becomes fresh and new every day: “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31).

17. Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 222-223
Case Study V
In my daily life I can remember that…
“There are few who realize the influence of the little things of life upon the development of character. Nothing with which we have to do is really small. The varied circumstances that we meet day by day are designed to test our faithfulness and to qualify us for greater trusts.”
Patriarchs and Prophets, pp

18. Every morning that I look at myself in the mirror, I can have the assurance that my sins of yesterday have been forgiven because “my life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). I have value because I am a child of God!

19. DEAR MIRROR… CLOSING ACTIVITY…
Write a letter to yourself to hang on your mirror. Thinking of what you have learned. Write who you really are in God’s sight. Begin with the words:
“Dear Mirror, I am …”