Please Tell Me Who I Am!
“There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am!”
- Roger Hodgson, Supertramp, 1979
If you cling to your life
You will lose it,
But if you give up your life for me
You will find it.
– Jesus Christ, 33 AD
I love “The Logical Song” by Supertramp. Whenever it comes on my favorite soft rock oldies station it resonates with me. I too had an empty dissatisfaction of what I was taught in my youth about my identity. That eventually led me to Christ. I really don’t know if Roger Hodgson ever found a satisfactory answer to his question to “Please tell me who I am” but he was asking the right question!
The Logical Song captures beautifully the journey to a type of childhood innocence and wonder at God’s creation to a more logical, cynical perception of “reality.” This thinking is programmed into us. Secular academia and media continue today to try to mold us and our children into the belief that we are just an insignificant cog in a global machine. From Darwinian evolutionary science theory taught as fact to Marxist “woke” ideology now seeking to permeate all academia, we have been fed the lie that our individual lives are devoid of any transcendent value or significance. We are supposedly just part of a “group.” We are either “the oppressors” or “the oppressed.” This has lead us all to be “the depressed!”
This late 70’s song is more relevant today in 2021 than ever. As Carl Jung said, “The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know the world will tell you.” With rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view they are ready to tell us based upon our race, gender (or what we think our gender is) socio-economic status and age…who we are. The confusion, division and unrest continue to grow as the Big Lie about our identities programs our minds.
Jesus teaches us that the way out of this lie is counterintuitive. To find out who I am has not been through passive acceptance of our culture’s lies or obsessive introspection of myself. However, it has come through taking my eyes off of myself and onto my Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ. When Jesus said, “If you cling to your life you will lose it, but if you give up your life for me you will find it” (Matthew 10:39) He very much spoke of the willingness for us to die for Him as He would die for us in order to gain eternal life. But also, this has a meaning for the discovery of our true personal identity. If we make knowing HIM rather than ourselves our pursuit something unexpectedly miraculous happens! We come to know Him AND our own self, the person He uniquely created us to be, the person He died on the cross and was raised up for us to be with HIM!
This is reality actually very “logical.” Who else can help us to really know our true identity than the One who has designed us, who has carefully molded us and who died for us for us so we might truly live? This is learned through looking to, listening to and following Him. As we do this, we will be reminded of our true identity each day even amidst the relentless, never-ending hell-inspired propaganda of this world.
Dear Father,
Thank you for showing us who we are through revealing to us your Son Jesus Christ. Thank You for the emptiness many of us have felt with the unsatisfying “answers” this world has offered. Lord, we ask for an awakening of our friends, family, co-workers and neighbors that the answers we have been given are not answers at all but that the true answer can be found in knowing your Son Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen!