I don’t know about you, but I many times think about who I am intended by God to be.  The scripture tells us of how we were made in the image of God and shows us how far from that likeness that we have gone.  It speaks about how we have been pulled and twisted out of shape  since the fall and how we now through Christ are to be and are being renewed into that likeness.

I suspect that God is at work in my life and in yours, to conform us to His image, and that at some level we are to participate in that work. That there is to be a yielding on our part, to let go of all that is false and to pursue the “truth” of who we are before God and each other.

Obviously, we are not like the rest of creation, God has granted us a choice in the matter.  In his book  New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton writes the following:

“Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity,our own destiny.  We are free beings and sons of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others, by choosing the truth.  to put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity.  We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living.  It is quite easy, it seems to please everyone.  But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high.  To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls “working out our salvation,” is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears.  It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation. We do not know clearly beforehand what the result of this work will be.  The secret of my full identity is hidden in Him.  He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be.  But unless I desire this identity and work with Him and in Him, the work will never be done.”

It takes not only yielding, but faith and trust in the one who created us.  For most of us this is an on again, off again proposition. But I know that in all of us, there is this desire to be fully who we are intended to be, and to be that fully present human being, living fully in the present and moving in hope towards our future with Him.

For years God has been moulding me a changing those distortions in me, how have you noticed that work in you?

Quote: Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, pgs. 34-35