Me?

The guest speaker's analogy at a recent outreach on campus that I attended was powerful--one which immediately brought a living, tangible scene to the vor of my imagination . . . 'When you walk into a crowd, there is one who sees . . . . only you.' Maybe no one else notices, maybe no one else really sees. Maybe to you, it feels as if everyone else is focusing on everyone else with the major exception of . . . you. Maybe, even, your greatest fear seems to have come to life in this crowd . . . overlooked, irgnored, dismissed, ostracized. And maybe, what you sense and feel is actually true. But it isn't the Truth. Because He isn't 'everyone else.' And He is there. And while 'everyone else' may not recognize you . . . He does.

Nor is it a wait and see kind of thing. 'If I look the right way, or do this certain thing, or hide this fault . . . then maybe I will eventually gain his attention.' No. Rather it's an instantaneous 'no credentials necessary' gig. You walk in the room and the very atmosphere changes with that something about you that makes you, you . . . making you in fact, 'un-unnoticeable' for Him. Having nothing to do with whether or not He wants to notice you (although He does), or whether or not He is willing to notice you (which He is), or whether or not it fits appropriately into the situation at that time to notice you (more often than not His understanding of appropriateness is not ours). . . no . . . He just can't not notice you. It's impossible. Afterall, He's the one who created you--created you in such a way as to move---Him. You are His dream come true.

This is a theme I would have had to be both blind and deaf to have missed over the past few weeks, coming from both Christian and non-Christian sources. In fact, sitting here writing this, I feel somehow flooded with scenes and images and words--remembering just how often it is lately that I have been anywhere from pricked to literally moved in my spirit by this truth--and the different facets of this truth . . .

No Matter who everyone else is . . . I have rather suprised myself over the last months through a growing interest in watching the hit show, Germany's Next Topmodel--a show that many of you will recognize as being a sister program to America's Next Topmodel. Every Thursday night, I along with one of the girls in our group, have cozied up on my couch to watch the next intriguing episode. And, each time, I have felt God speaking to me and moving my heart for the women of Germany . . .

But nothing moved me more than the Decision Time at the end of one particular episode. After weeks and weeks of giving everything they had, now coming down to the last five girls in the competition, it was time for the girls to go before the jury and hear if they had made it one step further into the next-to-last round.

There was one girl in particular that I had on my heart. In the beginning of the season she had been shy. Unsure. Doe-eyed and quiet and completely unaware of her own worth. And at the end of every episode the jury would end up at the same conclusion, 'we believe in you, but you don't . . . that must change, or else . . .' And so the season went on, and finally she began to learn how to see herself differently, how to fight, how to unearth the potential and worth inside of her . . . and her resume began to show it as she began to get job after job . . . so much so that the other girls remaining in the competition had begun to trash talk her--she had risen to threat status for them.

And so on this evening, this shy doe-eyed girl stood before the jury once again. On one hand she had clearly reached a new level, however the question remained . . . would it be enough to move on?

I don't think I could ever forget what Peyman, potentially the toughest jury member in the group, said to her as she stood there, for the first time noticeably confident and truly at home in her own skin . . . 'Christina, in the beginning, no one could remember your name. You would enter a room or try out for a job, and of all the girls, you were the one who everyone, at the end, kept asking, 'and who was that one again, we just can't remember . . .? But now look at you. You know who you are and everyone else knows it too. You are Christina.'

The next scene was Christina entering the dressing room where the other girls waited, and with tears in her eyes and arms held high she proclaimed, 'I know who I am, I am Christina.'

The impact of this moment for me was stunning--it took my breath away. It was just so . . Biblical . . . so like Jesus. Having nothing to do with the worldy motto of 'believe in yourself,' what struck my heart was the obvious impact of having someone look you directly in your face and tell you, correctly, exactly who you are . . . of having someone say your name . . . it is more powerful than anything, I believe, we could ever do for ourselves to prove our own identity to ourselves . . .

. . . because who we are, ie. who we were created to be . . . is something that is meant to be told to us--given to us--not something that we were meant in and of and out of ourselves to create. And I believe that there is nothing that pleases our Lord more than seeing us not only accepting who He has created us to be, but beginning to live it. And we can only do that when we know that He knows our name . . . that He sees us, completely apart from everyone else.

You are the only you that there will ever be. Irreplaceable. Incredible. Beloved. So the next time you feel this horrible black-hole'ish question rising up in you . . . 'Me?,' Jesus is standing there nodding His head, answering, 'Yes, you . . .'

No matter who you think you are . . . but the Me? question is so often still muddied with our own human frailties and false understandings of who we are and what makes us valueable.

Often it's the inability to own ourselves for who we really are that makes the Me? question unanswerable . . . not having a clue at all about who we are, we flail around, making this up or leaving that blank when it comes to our own identity . . . somehow squirming our way out of saying the 'I' or 'me' words and really meaning them . . .

Which is one reason why one of my favorite things about the German language is the use of the word, 'you.' Often, when calling someone on the phone or simply talking with someone in the midst of a conversation, one person will say to the other, 'hey, you, . . .' (hey, du),--not as some sort of impersonal 'you' in the way we would often use it, meaning, whoever you are out there in the void, you really aren't important to me, but,.... rather their use of 'you' is a far more personal, even intimate, well, exclamation point! It is a way of bringing 'you' to the forefront, saying, it is you that I wanted to talk with and this is something that I wanted to share with you . . .

. . . the very same you that Jesus notices in the crowd and wants to be around . . .

No matter what you look like . . . And yet even when we accept, at least at some level, 'Me,' we continue to still struggle with the value of Me. Our looks for instance. Oh that we would see ourselves as God sees us--and yes, even physically. I believe that if every person in the world would truly accept how God created them to be . . and would stop fighting it . . . each person in their own way would be the most beautiful person on earth.

But we waste time letting this get in the way of our seeing the One who stands in the crowd and sees only us . . . because we doubt His perception of us when He does see us . . .

One line from a song I have heard from Delerious recently speaks directly to this . . . ' . . . Nip and Tuck' if you have the bucks, there are ways to find a cure. Psalm 139 is the conscience to our selfish crime. God didn't screw up when He made you. He's a Father who loves to parade you . . . Our God Reigns . . . .'

No matter what you have done . . . Even if, for some, the Me? question does not revolve around looks, . . . how often do we mix up what we have done with who we were meant to be--and thus how God sees us?

At least twice now in the last few weeks I have heard different speakers mention Zacchaues, the little man who, of anyone, seemed to be less than deserving of Jesus' attention . . . so short he had to climb a tree to see Jesus pass by, so sinful that he made himself, his character, even smaller. Here was a man who literally no one liked. He was for, everyone, a 'notorious sinner.' A person to be avoided at all costs. But Jesus . . .

. . . Jesus saw him, up in that tree. Jesus looked past the fruit of his life and saw into his heart. And Jesus responded with certainty . . . He did not say, 'hey you, what's your name? Yeah, well, mmm, I think I am to spend a little time with you, in like, you know, your house, but to be honest I'm not yet all that sure about it, so yeah, ummm, let me go and first pray about it, and then I'll let you know tomorrow.' . . .

No! Jesus looked Zacchaues directly in the eyes, having known from the beginning of time that he would be there that day, hanging on that tree--a sinner and outcast in the eyes of the rest of the world--and He said with total assurance and love and confidence and unwaivering conviction, 'Zacchaues! Quick, come down! I must be a guest at your home today. . . '

And this is the 'must' that we all must hear echoing in our spirits and in our hearts . . . because it is a must that has to do with us . . . can't you hear Him, can't you hear Him saying, '. . . I must see you in the crowd, I must recognize you, I must know your name, I must be with you . . . ' His must is fueled and propelled by the pure and endless love that He has for each one of us.

And it is in and through His must, therefore, that we are changed. Jesus sees us before we become who He knows He created us to be. And it's in meeting Him there, that we are, indeed, changed . . . no matter who everyone else is and what they think about who we are, no matter what we look like or what we have done . . . no matter what we think about ourselves, in His Presence all of these 'no matters' fall away from the only thing that does matter . . . Jesus loving us, seeing us, and saying . . . 'Yes, at last, it is You . . . for I have been waiting . . . '